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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25647925">Cosmin and the Captain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Late_Into_the_Night/pseuds/So_Late_Into_the_Night'>So_Late_Into_the_Night</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ghosts (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cap / Thomas is very brief, Fluff, Gay, Internalised Homophobia, LGBT, M/M, SO VERY GAY, The Captain is Gay (Ghosts TV 2019), a bit of homophobia from Lady Button but she gets over it, mlm, queer, the captain is babey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:29:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25647925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Late_Into_the_Night/pseuds/So_Late_Into_the_Night</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Captain has never exactly admitted to himself that he likes men, but after a mildly passionate night spent with a certain Romantic wannabe poet, it would be pretty hard to deny it. Nonetheless, the Captain is not prepared to go into a full-on relationship with Thomas.</p><p>But when an ancient Roman ghost who was too shy to introduce himself before turns up, he is cute, funny, kind, intelligent, and oh so handsome. Naturally, the Captain fancies him.</p><p>Now if only he could confess his feelings without making a fool of himself….</p><p>·</p><p>A “Ghosts” fic in which I give Cap the man he deserves.</p><p>Edit: the Captain did not in fact serve in Africa. He has no Africa Star (a military medal awarded to soldiers who served in WWII Africa). I wrote this before doing my research properly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Captain (Ghosts TV 2019)/Original Male Character(s), The Captain/Thomas Thorne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Thomas is having a crisis, and the Captain feels duty-bound to help him, but things get a little out of hand.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a glorious sunny day in Button House. Robin was playing chess with Alison, who was getting very good from all the practice and had actually beaten him once. Mike was down in the boiler room, still trying to fix the wretched machine, and Thomas was sulking in the upstairs bath, with his feet up, doing god knows what. Julian was delicately trying to explain something to Kitty, and — since it involved where <em>babies</em> came from — the Captain was muttering “good lord” at regular intervals as he bobbed on his feet, clutching his swagger stick. Pat, Mary, Lady Button and little Jemima were watching an amusing television show about a sleazy Elizabethan nobleman<a href="#blackadder1" id="blackadder1back" name="blackadder1back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>; Lady Button’s hands were spending most of their time on Jemima’s ears.</p><p>The rest of the day passed itself very nicely, and the Captain was happily patrolling the grounds one last time before going to bed. He was surprised to hear a hiccupping noise coming from the bathroom. A male voice. He readied himself, then walked in. The sight that greeted him could not have surprised him more if it had included an elephant.</p><p>He knew Thomas Thorne was dramatic.</p><p>He knew Thomas Thorne was the type to (pretend to) try to drown his already dead body at the mere mention of a certain Lord George<a href="#byron1" id="byron1back" name="byron1back"><sup>[2]</sup></a>.</p><p>He knew Thomas Thorne was a Romantic.</p><p>What he did not expect to find was Thomas, curled up on the cold bathroom floor, tears pouring down (across, since he was lying on his side in the foetal position) his face which was red and raw, sobs racking his body, as his throat emitted harsh, choked sounds.</p><p>Thomas was not a beautiful crier. Not when the emotion was real. Not like that. He did not look pretty, and that made it all the more horrifically gut-wrenching because the Captain could tell that Thomas was not putting it on for show. He hadn’t even been making that much noise: certainly not the amount of noise he would make if he was trying for attention.</p><p>“Thomas…” the Captain began, but he faltered. He hated to feel like an intruder. The so-called emotions that Thomas usually displayed were so openly shown (and somewhat fake, the Captain suspected) that it felt awful to trespass on what was clearly a private matter.</p><p>Thomas opened his eyes, squeezing tears from between eyelashes that had been matted together by the continual rubbing of eye sockets with fists. He saw the Captain — or rather, the Captain’s boots — and his mouth opened, his lips dry.</p><p>“Oh god,” said Thomas. His body heaved, and a fresh wave of tears soaked his face. “I didn’t —”</p><p>He broke off, and howled silently again, looking wretched.</p><p>The Captain crouched down, wincing slightly at his clicking knees, and eased himself into a sitting position on the floor beside Thomas. He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder and helped him up, until Thomas was leaning on him, crying into the Captain’s chest. Thomas’s arms snuck up and behind the Captain, looping around his neck as Thomas clung on desperately. The Captain felt his heart rate (if he still had one) speed up, and cursed himself.</p><p><em>Now is not the time for an identity crisis over men, officer,</em> he told himself. <em>And besides, it’s Thomas. Calm yourself. Do it for him.</em></p><p>“Thomas, while I admit I am unsure what has caused this, I want to help. You need not reply to this if you don’t wish to,” he whispered.</p><p>The Captain enveloped Thomas in his arms, and slowly but surely felt the latter’s breathing (in whatever way ghosts breathed) become more regular. Thomas sat back, removing his arms from around the Captain, sniffed heartily, wiped his face with his bloodstained sleeve, and sat still for a minute, staring at his feet, which were straight out in front of him.</p><p>“Captain,” he said in a hollow voice.</p><p>The Captain grunted, and patted Thomas’s arm uncertainly.</p><p>“I am going to tell you something.” Thomas’s voice wobbled in an undignified manner. “And you are not to repeat it to a soul. I could get killed for this, cast into that horrific spectral plane that ghouls haunt.”</p><p>The Captain gulped. “I understand, Thorne.”</p><p>“If I wasn’t already dead,” Thomas amended, sniffling. More tears leaked out. The Captain nodded. “You are of course well aware of my attraction to women. Everybody is, and they all think that that is all there is to Thomas Thorne. But oh no. Oh no no no. The very same effect that occurred on my body — nay, on my loins — the one time that a lady removed her stays<a href="#stays1" id="stays1back" name="stays1back"><sup>[3]</sup></a> in front of me has been produced in another fashion. I found myself attracted to, roused by… a man,” Thomas said. His voice was raw and scratchy.</p><p>The Captain didn’t even find the time to be scandalised by the lewd implications. His heart plummeted. His stomach started to ache. He could have sworn that perspiration beaded on his brow.</p><p>
  <em>No, no. Not this conversation. Not now. Not with Thorne.</em>
</p><p>“He was just a man I knew while alive. A writer. I had forgotten. You do that, after two hundred years. But I just remembered.”</p><p>“Thomas.” The Captain cleared his throat. Thomas looked tearily up at him, which actually made it a little difficult to concentrate. <em>Good god, man, are you so starved for the romance you never got that you’ll even take Thomas as a stand-in for a lady?</em> the Captain chided himself. “Thomas,” he repeated, trying to heave his train of thought out of a ditch and back onto its tracks.</p><p>“I know it’s wrong; I do!” Thomas burst out. “I have tried everything I can think of to stop it! I know I cursed my hormones over Alison, but I do it more so over this. Even when alive, there is little point to a relationship between two men. Reproduction cannot occur between two individuals with… oh, <em>you</em> know.”</p><p>“Good lord.”</p><p>“Although I did know a lady with one of those… sorry sorry, not the point. But please refrain from lecturing me on the futility of relationships between men. I am already fully aware of it.” He sounded broken but calm.</p><p>The Captain stared straight at the door handle, trying to stop the single heartbroken tear making its way out of his right eye.</p><p>
  <em>Little point. Futility.</em>
</p><p>“Oh, what have I done, to cause the dear, brave, noble Captain to shed tears?” Thomas cried in a hiss, a strangled note tearing through his voice as he placed a worried hand flat on the Captain’s chest, slipping it inside the jacket in a way that could almost have been accidental and naïve. “I have never seen you cry; you didn’t even when we all shouted at you. Sorry for that, by the way.”</p><p>“Quite all right,” said the Captain stiffly.</p><p>Thomas started to say something, but the Captain’s resolve broke, and, with a frustrated growl, he tore Thomas’s hand from his chest, and, still gripping it, pushed the poet back hard against the wall (which they somehow managed not to go through), and shifted up to him, roughly moving one of his legs to between Thomas’s while the other rested against the man’s hip, before stopping an inch away from his face.</p><p>“May I?” he asked, brusque yet quiet.</p><p>“Please,” Thomas whispered. His hands were flat on the floor beside him, his knuckles white. He bent his knees up so that one of them rested on the Captain’s chest. The Captain seemed hesitant, scared of what to do after getting himself into such a situation as the one he found himself in. Thomas grinned, and decided that as the (albeit marginally) more experienced person, it was his responsibility to make the real move. He leaned forward to meet the Captain halfway, as though to kiss him, but stopped, a hair’s breadth away, to lick his lips first. His tongue flashed out, wetting his own lips, but also brushing momentarily against the corner of the Captain’s mouth, whereupon the Captain unwittingly tilted his head very slightly back, his eyes fluttering closed, and moaned. Thomas considered this a little desperate, and took pity. He took the Captain’s face in his hands, and pressed his own mouth to his companion’s. The Captain and Thomas kissed long, hard and deep, like schoolchildren at a dance, breathing in each other’s scents of gunpowder and paper, respectively. They kept their left hands at each other’s jaws, fingers on faces, while their right hands grasped each other. Thomas pulled back, but kept their foreheads together. He breathed deeply, then went back in for more. The Captain leaned forward and kissed him needily. Thomas found that his stockinged knee brushed his own waistcoat, such was the proximity between the two men who shared a moment in a Button House bathroom that night.</p><p>Their moment lasted quite a while, in fact. Both found delight and satisfaction in taking the opportunity to discover how to please a man. Thomas was extremely gratified by the small, desperate grunts and growls that the Captain made when a face was buried in the crook of his neck, while furtive fingers scrambled at the buttons of the army regulation shirt and loosened the tie — the jacket long since pushed down the Captain’s surprisingly muscled arms and left on the floor beside the swagger stick, and the Sam Browne belt hastily unhooked and discarded around the Captain’s waist a mere minute after their mouths first touched — and likewise the Captain adored the sighs that Thomas unconsciously let out when fingertips were slipped under the waistband of his breeches at the side, and a hand pressed flush to his skin, shirt untucked <em>just</em> enough to allow a little movement of the wrist.</p><p>For a time, they let their hands lay idle (Thomas’s in the military haircut, arms slung lazily around the Captain’s neck, and the Captain’s up the front of Thomas’s shirt), and concentrated on kissing. Complaisant, Thomas let his mouth go lax as the Captain explored the various possibilities — hesitant, gentle and nervous, yet curious and willing — with his own. Once that had been done for a while, the Captain in return let Thomas turn him around and hold him against the wall with the barest touch of a palm on his shoulder. Completely helpless and shuddering from the new and utterly glorious sensation, the Captain sat still, enthralled, as he was kissed, all over his neck and face, by a Regency dandy of all people. He bit down hard on his lip to prevent himself from crying out in pleasure. His skin flushed red as Thomas rested his lips on the Captain’s neck, staying still to allow the tension to rise until the Captain cried out in a hollow, desperate voice full of desire: “Good god, man, must you keep me waiting?”</p><p>“You wish I would behave otherwise?” Thomas asked, his breath causing the skin of the Captain’s neck to grow redder.</p><p>“<em>As</em> commanding officer, I humbly request that you continue your previous tactic of kissing m —”</p><p>“Yes sir,” Thomas mumbled vivaciously into the Captain’s mouth.</p><p>The Captain responded with such enthusiasm as would have rendered Thomas incapable of dying, were it not for the fact that he was a ghost.</p><p>Thomas’s cheeks coloured when it occurred to him that no lady in his living days had pleased him as well as a man he hardly liked seemed to manage. He fought against this thought by catching the Captain’s mouth in his own on its way back up from Thomas’s collarbone.</p><p>The Captain was caught off guard, but certainly was not going to complain. Grinding his lips into Thomas’s, he grunted again — <em>damn it, Thorne, and damn you</em> — and removed a hand from Thomas’s hip in order to grasp in both hands the biceps of the man he was kissing. Thomas was not particularly strong, not at all, but there <em>was</em> something nice about the lean shape of his arms.</p><p>They passed most of the rest of the night in a similar fashion, and, among the whimpers and moans of bliss, Thomas quite forgot that he had been upset. The Captain essentially forgot <em>everything</em>, such was his euphoria, yet he couldn’t help his lingering feeling that although Thomas was <em>a</em> man — and that was to his credit — he was perhaps not <em>the</em> man for the Captain.</p><p>Waking early the next morning, the Captain stretched out happily, head on Thomas’s chest, and considered all the men he had loved.</p><p>The Captain had always loved men. He loved the concept of men.</p><p>As a lanky fifteen-year-old, the rugby boys at school had had a certain effect on him. He had watched the game, cheering for his school’s team, but really watching the rippling beauty of the muscles in the players’ calves. When he had first signed up to the army, the Lieutenant put in charge of his unit had been a young, stocky man from Cardiff, with biceps, abdominal muscles and a Welsh accent. The Captain (then Private) had been fascinated.</p><p>The Captain thought men were the epitome of good design. Their slender hips and broad shoulders, with taut torsos in between, were beautiful. Elegant.</p><p>The Captain smiled, finally admitting to himself that he was — physically — attracted to males. Once that was done, it seemed a natural next step in the plan of action to consider whether there were genuinely any feelings in that military breast for a waify poet such as Thomas Thorne.</p><p>The answer was an easy <em>no</em>.</p><p>Thomas was a pretty man, when he wasn’t crying, but the Captain had seen — and loved — prettier ones. And besides, the nature of a Romantic poet was not suited to that of a gruff battle-hardened soldier.</p><p>Thomas groaned in his sleep, twisting and pulling a lock of his curly hair between two fingers. Effeminate men were all very well (<em>very</em> well indeed, the Captain thought), but the Captain did not want a relationship with Thomas Thorne. The Captain did feel a little bad, however, as he watched the peaceful pretty poet humming absentmindedly in his slumber.</p><p>
  <em>How do I tell him I don’t want him? How does one tell a man that, after spending a passionate night kissing him?</em>
</p><p>Thomas stirred, opened his eyes, and looked blearily up at his companion.</p><p>“Thomas,” the Captain began, “I have no idea how to tell you this. I know that, in light of what we did last night, this may seem odd, but I regret to tell you that I cannot continue our relationship like this. I simply do not feel for you in the way that — <em>good god</em>, Humphrey, why must you do that?”</p><p>Angrily, the Captain shoved the headless body of the Tudor nobleman back through the wall by kicking him hard in the back of a knee. He turned back to Thomas, who was staring up at him, all eyes. Thomas had propped himself up on his elbows. The length of ribbon he usually wore knotted around his neck was loose, lying along his shoulders, and his shirt and waistcoat were both undone more than halfway. He was disheveled but happy.</p><p>As he put his jacket and Sam Browne on again, and picked up his stick, the Captain continued:</p><p>“Much as I enjoyed last night, and I know you did too, this cannot continue longterm. I like men, and I like you, but as a friend, Thomas.”</p><p>“You never even wanted to be friends until you knew I was <em>one of those</em>.” Thomas chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.</p><p>The Captain straightened his tie and tightened it a little. “Hmm, ‘one of those’? Is that a euphemism for —”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Right. Well. I know, and I do apologise. It was a little rude to go straight from scorning you to —”</p><p>Thomas smirked. “To scoring<a href="#scoring1" id="scoring1back" name="scoring1back"><sup>[4]</sup></a> me?”</p><p>“We didn’t <em>get</em> that far! Is it even possible with ghosts? Did Julian teach you that term for it?”</p><p>“I know, no clue, and yes.”</p><p>“I am sorry. I was rude, and I took advantage of you. I am not seriously interested in you in that way, and I should have checked myself before spending last night how I did.”</p><p>“Oh, it’s <em>fine</em>,” Thomas assured him. “I prefer women anyway. Last night was better than <em>anything</em> I got while alive —”</p><p>“What, really?”</p><p>“Oh, yes. You’re frightfully good. My point was, however, that while last night was better than anything I got while alive that is partly due to the fact that only one woman went to bed with me in my life and and she only liked the fact that I was a poet, and therefore didn’t try very hard.”</p><p>“I’m sorry to hear it.”</p><p>“’Tis fine. She was married anyway. Just wanted a bit of scandal in her life for the sake of it. In any case, it is utterly alright that you don’t want to continue last night. I agree, really.”</p><p>“Thank god.”</p><p>Thomas leaned forward, cupped the Captain’s jaw in his hand (the pad of his thumb grazed the Captain’s cheekbone, driving him mad), and kissed him one last time, tenderly. The Captain moaned quietly, but kissed him back. Not trusting himself not to give in to more, and at a time of day when being caught was more of a risk, he pulled away after a few seconds. Thomas was beaming.</p><p>“So we’re done here,” the Captain said.</p><p>Thomas nodded happily. “I want no more, but it was a good experience to have.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="blackadder1" name="blackadder1"></a>1. “Blackadder II”, a wonderful show made lots better by the presence of Stephen Fry. <a href="#blackadder1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="byron1" name="byron1"></a>2. Byron. <a href="#byron1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="stays1" name="stays1"></a>3. A stays, like a corset or a bra but a lot more comfortable, was a short, wired undergarment for shaping the bust that ladies would have worn in Thomas’s time. <a href="#stays1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="scoring1" name="scoring1"></a>4. It means sex. <a href="#scoring1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cosmin turns up and the Captain falls hard, head over heels, for him, but he may not be the only one….</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ghosts of Button House noticed a change in atmosphere in the couple of months after that night: Thomas and the Captain, instead of bitching at each other day and night, were suddenly civil to each other. More than once, Julian caught one of them actually <em>smiling</em> at the other.</p><p>There appeared to be a new understanding between the two of them. The Captain was relieved. He had anticipated a very awkward friendship, but Thomas never treated him unkindly for his weakness and wants. The Captain was a little disappointed in himself for giving in to his basic desires for men by latching onto Thorne, but the truth of it was that the kisses had been good, and the Captain had been in serious need of good kisses from men. Sometimes late at night, he ended up thinking about the feel of Thomas’s lips on the nape of his neck, but mostly he was over it. They essentially pretended it had never happened, except for the time when Julian made a sleazy joke and each of Thomas and the Captain instinctively glanced at the other. That <em>had</em> been awkward.</p><p>So for six months or so, the Captain walked around feeling smug.</p><p>
  <em>I got kissed by a man.</em>
</p><p>Somehow it seemed a bigger victory than beating the Desert Fox in the ’40s<a href="#rommel1" id="rommel1back" name="rommel1back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>.</p><p>
  <em>I spent a night in the explicit company of a man.</em>
</p><p>The Captain smirked to himself, tapping his swagger stick off his palm, as he thought of it.</p><p>He was, as always, doing his late-night strolling of the grounds before going to bed. The little evening walks had become more tolerable now that Thomas, who was also often up late (“I have no influence over when inspiration strikes me, sir! I cannot help it!”), was being civil, almost friendly or kind.</p><p>The Captain passed Thomas, who was lying flat in the lake, spread-eagled, staring at the sky, which was filled with a dusting of little stars, like icing sugar on a chocolate sponge.</p><p>“Evening, Thorne.”</p><p>Thomas saluted lazily. “Evening, Captain.”</p><p>The Captain continued pacing along the grounds. He was around the back of Button House when he heard a noise coming from a bush. On the offchance that it was a ghost, he called out:</p><p>“Hullo?”</p><p>A person emerged from the bush. They came right through the leaves of the thing, which did not move. It was a ghost, but it was not a ghost that the Captain recognised. A man, about the same age-at-death as the Captain but a bit taller, was crouched cautiously down on his hunkers, and crawled out slowly. A face with glorious cheekbones, a cute nose and chapped lips peeked out. Round dark brown eyes surrounded by thick dark eyelashes were set into tanned olive skin. A full head of curly dark hair with a few grey streaks was cropped reasonably short, yet was kept long enough to fall over its owner’s eyebrows a little.</p><p>The man stood up. He was agile and very well-balanced on his feet, which wore leather sandals. He had on a red tunic that was short enough to display a bit of his incredibly muscled thighs, and one could get a very good look at his biceps, as the tunic was short-sleeved. He did not appear to have been getting strong for the sake of it, but merely as a by-product of honest physical work. The Captain stared, lost in a reverie about just what he would have the man do to him if the other was willing. Having relatively recently admitted to himself about liking men, almost every even marginally pretty man affected him in a huge way. And the man who then stood before the Captain was the most beautiful that the Captain had ever seen.</p><p>The Captain found that his mouth had swelled up, his brain was a-jitter, and his sight was blurred, at which point his knees gave out, and he keeled over, having fainted.</p><p>When he came to, the beautiful man was peering over him, muttering to himself in another language.</p><p>“… sexaginta-novum, septuaginta, septuaginta unum. Septuaginta unum pulsat per minutin.<a href="#latin1" id="latin1back" name="latin1back"><sup>[2]</sup></a>”</p><p>His fingers were pressed to the Captain’s wrist, taking his pulse. He was looking in the window of the house at the clock.</p><p>The Captain wasn’t even sure he had a pulse. But, for that matter, Thomas was incapable of drowning in the lake.</p><p>“Excuse me, sir?” the Captain asked, then recognised from the fact that the man (a) spoke Latin and (b) wore a red tunic that he was most likely an ancient Roman ghost. He cast his mind back to his Latin lessons in school. “Ehh, salve<a href="#latin2" id="latin2back" name="latin2back"><sup>[3]</sup></a>? Who are you?”</p><p>The other man laughed gently (and the Captain tried very hard not to disintegrate).</p><p>“It is alright. I have been here long enough to know the English language. My name is Cosmin.”</p><p>
  <em>“Cosmin”. Good god. He even sounds stellar. And he is. Look at him, in the light of the Moonah. Byron may have been onto something… “though the heart be still as loving and the moon still be as bright”<a href="#byron2" id="byron2back" name="byron2back"><sup>[4]</sup></a>; better not let Thomas hear me say that.</em>
</p><p>The Captain snapped out of what he would have been too embarrassed to call a daydream, and cleared his throat.</p><p>“Err. People just call me the Captain.”</p><p>“You are a man of the army?”</p><p>“Yes. A brave one, I’m told.” The Captain smiled awkwardly, having no clue how to operate in the presence of an attractive man who was willingly speaking to him (and, more to the point, was still quite literally leaning over him, pinning him to the ground with a knee on his chest — and therefore that muscular calf was laying across his midriff — while fingers rested on the Captain’s neck, absentmindedly pretending to take a pulse).</p><p>“Does it go shorter, the word ‘Captain’? In Rome we often make our names shorter. Does ‘Cap’ work? May I call you that?”</p><p>The Captain felt his vision swimming before him as he became faint again, as it had done on the battlefields of Abyssinia when he fought the Afrika Korps<a href="#rommel2" id="rommel2back" name="rommel2back"><sup>[5]</sup></a>, and he employed the same tactic that he had then: closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. He had no idea whether deep breaths helped ghosts at all, but it felt useful.</p><p>He tuned back in to the metaphorical radio station of real life.</p><p>“Sorry, I… got distracted. It has been decades since anyone has called me anything other than plain ‘Captain’. Yes, you may absolutely call me Cap, if you wish. Should I shorten ‘Cosmin’?”</p><p>“I would prefer if you did not. It is nicer on its own, and most people did not use it for me. Now please lie still —”</p><p>“— wasn’t planning on anything else —”</p><p>“— while I check you are not hurt.”</p><p>“Cosmin, I am a ghost. I doubt it is possible for me to get hurt.”</p><p>“All the same, amicus meus<a href="#latin3" id="latin3back" name="latin3back"><sup>[6]</sup></a>, I like to check.”</p><p>“Why have none of us ever seen you before?” interrupted the Captain, wishing he had paid enough attention to his Latin teacher in school to know what Cosmin had just called him.</p><p>“I kept to myself. I am happy on my own.”</p><p>“And are you going to just disappear again now after ascertaining my good health?”</p><p>Cosmin took a second to respond, translating everything back into his native Latin, then translating his response into English.</p><p>“Would your friends accept me as a part of the group?”</p><p>“Whyever would they not?”</p><p>“You all know each other very well.”</p><p>“Listen here, man. If they can accept a stupid old War-obsessed walrus like myself, then they can accept you. And do not worry about being new. Julian has only been around since the nineties, and he has inserted himself fiercely well into daily life. You would be very welcome.”</p><p>Cosmin considered long and hard, then said:</p><p>“What is a <em>walrus</em>?”</p><p>“It’s a large, pudgy, obnoxious animal with huge teeth, and… oh, it’s not important. My point is that they don’t like me very much, but they still love me and care for me, in their own ways, and let me stay.”</p><p>“Are you sure they would not mind me?”</p><p>“Positive. Come on, you can stay in my room for the night and then we will sort you out. I shall introduce you to the others in the morning.”</p><p>Cosmin nodded gratefully. As they strolled back towards the house, he, when prompted, began to tell the Captain a little about himself.</p><p>“I am a member of the Roman Army, sent over to invade Britannica<a href="#claudius1" id="claudius1back" name="claudius1back"><sup>[7]</sup></a>. My rank is Centurion, which puts me in charge of a hundred men. I died on this site of being poisoned at dinner, which is why I am not wearing my armour.”</p><p>The Captain grimaced. He indicated his room to Cosmin, who happily followed him in, still chattering.</p><p>“Thank you. I died in the year you would call 50 AD. I have seen many a thing come and go. I used to be acquainted with the caveman who rests here, but I stopped talking to him a few centuries after that. And when the rest of you came along… it was too late for me to join back in. Are you sure they will not mind me?”</p><p>The Captain, who had been listening in awe to Cosmin’s speech, shook himself a little and zoned back in.</p><p>“What? Oh, don’t worry. They would have to go up against me if they tried minding. Now, err, I usually turn in for the night at this point.”</p><p>Cosmin nodded. “Is there another bed somewhere?”</p><p>“Not a good plan; the others might happen upon you. Here, my bed is a double — you may use the other half of it — if you like,” the Captain offered hesitantly. “I use this side.”</p><p>Cosmin nodded gratefully, and the Captain tried extremely hard not to pass out at the concept of spending a night in the same bed as an attractive man. He knew it wasn’t “sleeping with him” in <em>that</em> way, but all the same, sharing a bed would usually be an explicitly romantic occurrence.</p><p>Cosmin curled up in the foetal position, facing the Captain, as the Captain lay awake, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about <em>things</em>.</p><p>His night with Thomas had been glorious. There was something very attractive about the contrast that a Regency Romantic posed to his own stiff military manner. A man so carefree, so beautiful, who definitely knew how to please him, and could romance him with beautiful words, was a perfectly good option. But on the other hand….</p><p>The Captain turned his head and looked at Cosmin. It was ridiculous, he knew; the man almost certainly wasn’t even <em>one of those</em>. Yet there was no denying the amount that the Captain felt every part of his own body drawn to the taut muscles and soft skin of Cosmin, and wanted to wind his fingers into the other’s locks, and allow the other to shove him to a wall with his body, hips pressed to hips, lips locked together.</p><p>Involuntarily, the Captain let out a small desperate sound. He stifled it as quickly as he could, embarrassed. Thankfully, Cosmin appeared to be deep in sleep.</p><p>The Captain took another look at his companion. Cosmin’s tunic had partially slipped off on one side, revealing a collarbone. The Captain tried very hard not to stare at Cosmin’s shoulder.</p><p><em>This is ridiculous, man. Pull yourself together,</em> he told himself.</p><p><em>But there is a pretty man,</em> his brain responded.</p><p>The Captain abandoned his attempt at propriety. He sat up in bed and tucked his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs and leaning his chin on his knees. As he watched, Cosmin twisted a lock of his hair around two fingers, in the exact same way as Thomas had.</p><p>The Captain’s heart caught in his throat, and he cursed out loud, the first time he had done so in a very long time. He felt uncomfortably hot about the neck, and his face felt flushed and dry. He flexed his hand, and tactfully placed it on the pillow beside Cosmin, just to feel close to him.</p><p>
  <em>I don’t wish for Thorne, not really. Cosmin is far more the type of man I am inclined to… admire. A strong, military man with a love for authority. God, look at him. Beautiful.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eros<a href="#eros1" id="eros1back" name="eros1back"><sup>[8]</sup></a> himself would be incapable of creating something so fundamentally glorious.</em>
</p><p>The Captain was surprised at his own poetic thought. He smiled gently, his thoughts dragged back to Thomas. The Captain couldn’t deny there was something beguiling about him.</p><p>The Captain had a sudden memory of Thomas, gasping, in the dawn light, on that night they had spent together. Thomas had had one hand in the Captain’s hair, and the other shoved suspiciously close to his own crotch. Using the grip he had from the hair, Thomas had encouraged the Captain to kiss him again and again —</p><p>Something touched his hand. The Captain looked down, surprised. Cosmin was, in his sleep, threading his fingers through the Captain’s.</p><p>The Captain fainted again.</p><p>In the morning, the Captain was woken by a pigeon crashing into the window. He was lying stiffly on his bed, the same way as he always did, and Cosmin was sprawled across the mattress, still holding his hand.</p><p>
  <em>God.</em>
</p><p>The Captain gently pressed Cosmin’s knuckles to his lips, then, lest his bedmate should awaken and realise what had happened, he got up and headed downstairs.</p><p>Alison and Mike were eating their breakfast. (The Captain grimaced; he still couldn’t see cornflakes in the same way.) Alison was trying to have a conversation with Mike while also warding off the unwanted advances of Thomas.</p><p>“Thomas, for the love of god!” she said, smacking her hand on the table. “I do not want to hear about how much you love me. I am married. This man loves me. He even took my last name, okay?”</p><p>“I do love her,” Mike said helpfully, looking not <em>quite</em> at Thomas.</p><p>Thomas threw his arms above his head. “Must you jilt me?” he cried.</p><p>Julian, who had been listening to the radio, sniggered. “Hate to break it to you, but ‘jilted’ would mean she agreed to marry you in the first place, which she did not.”</p><p>“Julian, not helpful,” Alison scolded.</p><p>Julian nodded in an <em>almost</em> convincing display of sincerity. Nobody was fooled, except for Thomas, who was paying very little attention.</p><p>The Captain coughed.</p><p>“Troops — by which I mean ghosts — there is a very important conversation which I feel I must have with you.”</p><p>“Think he’s going to finally come out?” Julian whispered to Pat. The Captain ignored him.</p><p>“Could you meet me in the common room in a few minutes? If you would be so kind. Thank you.”</p><p>The Captain walked away up to the common room, anxiously tapping his swagger stick off his leg. He felt, in an odd way, responsible for Cosmin and his wellbeing, and did not want to let him down. He thought again of Cosmin’s beautiful thick hair, and the way his fingers had felt, rough and calloused yet soft simultaneously, when they had held hands. Astonishingly, this did not help his nerves.</p><p>
  <em>This is ridiculous, man. You beat Rommel. You fought in the second War after living through the hell of what the Great one did to England. How the bally hell is introducing a frightfully handsome young chap —</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A strapping lad —</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A regular Eros —</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A damned sight for sore man-loving eyes —</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Damn the lot of them! How is introducing a Roman Centurion to a rowdy, immature crew of ghosts harder than fighting a war?</em>
</p><p>A hand touched his shoulder, and the Captain jumped. He turned around. The room was still mostly empty, except for himself… and Thomas.</p><p>“Thomas! What are you doing? The others must not find us here!” the Captain said, apprehensive.</p><p>“Oh, come now. Don’t be such a fussbudget<a href="#fussbudget1" id="fussbudget1back" name="fussbudget1back"><sup>[9]</sup></a>,” said Thomas impatiently. “What’s the worst they can do? Speculate about my… tendencies?” he added playfully, adjusting the lapel of the Captain’s jacket coyly and looking up at him through thick layers of eyelashes.</p><p>“And mine,” the Captain added gruffly, “which I would rather they did not do.” He removed the meddling fingertips from his lapel, but found that the hand in question clung on to his own.</p><p>“Now, see here. We agreed we were over each other,” the Captain protested as Thomas approached him again, pressing him gently to the wall with his body, legs to legs, hips to hips. The Captain automatically put his other hand out, out of chivalry, and it ended up on the waist of a certain poet, who looked delighted with himself.</p><p>“Agreements are sometimes reconsidered, if both parties consent, are they not, my lord?” Thomas murmured.</p><p>“Well, yes, I suppose so.”</p><p>
  <em>“My lord”… he really knows how to please me.</em>
</p><p>“Do you consent, sire?” Thomas whispered.</p><p>“Not now,” the Captain said desperately. “You may not care if we get caught in a compromising situation, but I do. In circles of the Romantic bohemians, I am sure your tendencies would not have received a second thought, but I assure you they would in the army, and in Button House.”</p><p>“Well, <em>o Captain my Captain</em>, I shall see you later, hmm?” Thomas coquettishly kissed the Captain on the cheek, tracing his fingers across a jawbone, and strutted off to perch on the sofa on the other side of the room.</p><p>“Well, I…” <em>was saving myself for Cosmin,</em> the Captain thought, finishing his sentence in his head.</p><p>The rest of the ghosts filed in, talking among themselves. They slowly organised themselves and sat down. The waiting was agony for the Captain.</p><p>He cleared his throat, then began. “Now, listen up, chaps. I was on my usual patrol of the grounds last night, and discovered someone that I should like you all to meet. He is a ghost, and claims to have known Robin. I assured him you would accept him into our little squadron here. And mark my words, if you don’t then you’ll have me to answer to.”</p><p>Having rushed his speech, the Captain had no idea what to do with his spare adrenaline, and made do with bouncing on his feet, just daring the others to defy him.</p><p>“Where is he?” Kitty asked eventually. She seemed nervous. Pat rested a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>The Captain suddenly realised how the situation seemed, and resolved to get it over with so he could clear up any misconceptions of affection immediately.</p><p>“My bedroom,” he muttered.</p><p>Unfortunately, they heard. Lady Button gasped, scandalised.</p><p>“Well done Captain,” said Julian admiringly. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”</p><p>Horrified at the implication, the Captain rushed to deny it, panicked. “No, no! By jove, no! He had nowhere else to stay last night!”</p><p>“And as we all know, there is <em>such</em> a shortage of bedrooms in Button House,” Thomas said sarcastically, making direct eye contact with the Captain, who stared him down in return.</p><p>“Thorne, I resent your suggestion,” the Captain said, miffed.</p><p>Thomas, who was sitting at the back where none of the others could see him, blew the Captain a kiss and winked, grinning.</p><p>“Messieurs et mesdames, please allow me to interrupt,” said a soft voice from the shadows. The Captain’s stomach twisted, and he felt a very strong desire to drop to his (clicky) knees. Cosmin continued: “You do this man an injustice. He found me, took me under his wing, and sheltered me last night in his chamber. It was an act of pure kindness, and you are unfair to his kind nature by presuming him to have been acting for an ulterior motive.”</p><p>He placed a hand on the Captain’s shoulder. The Captain felt his face flush, and thought himself close to tears from pride. He could not contain a smile; nor could he resist a sultry glance at Cosmin, which Thomas did not miss.</p><p>“Gosh,” said Kitty. “You <em>are</em> gorgeous. Nice to meet you. I’m Kitty.”</p><p>Cosmin shook hands with her. “Cosmin, madam. Delighted.”</p><p>Following Kitty’s lead, the rest of the Button House ghosts joined in. All shook hands, except Robin, who gave a roar of delight and embraced Cosmin, clapping him on the back. Cosmin returned the gesture.</p><p>The ghosts took Cosmin off on a tour around the house, but Thomas remained behind to speak to the Captain, who was looking glowingly after his new companion.</p><p>“May I expect a happy announcement soon?” he teased, lacing his fingers through the Captain’s as they stood side by side.</p><p>“Oh, hush, you insufferable toff,” the Captain said lovingly, caressing Thomas’s hand with his thumb.</p><p>“Wretched, uncultured oaf,” Thomas returned.</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>“To clarify: you are utterly besotted with Cosmin?” Thomas asked.</p><p>“Well, I, err.”</p><p>“Shh. No need to worry, at all. My lips are sealed.”</p><p>“Actually, might I borrow your lips one last time?” the Captain asked.</p><p>“Oh, <em>Captain</em>,” Thomas said, smiling flirtily. He nodded.</p><p>The Captain put an arm around Thomas’s waist and dipped him, like a pair of dancers at the end of a waltz. At the lowest point, their lips touched and for once it was Thomas who moaned delightedly.</p><p>“<em>My</em> Captain,” he finished.</p><p>They stood up again, and the Captain harrumphed at Thomas’s quotation of <em>poetry</em>.</p><p>“Who even wrote that blessèd thing?” he asked, swatting Thomas’s hand away from the Sam Browne.</p><p>“What, <em>O Captain My Captain</em>?”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>“Walt Whitman, I think. It’s about Lincoln.<a href="#whitman1" id="whitman1back" name="whitman1back"><sup>[10]</sup></a>”</p><p>The Captain nodded, staring after Cosmin, his thoughts filled again by just how wonderfully <em>short</em> the tunics Centurions wore were, and how easy it would be to move them aside and access something.</p><p>Thomas snapped his fingers in front of the Captain’s face again.</p><p>“<em>Captain</em>. As I was saying, your secret is safe with me. Oh, and by the way, you have good taste. He is a fine man.”</p><p>The Captain turned to stare at Thomas, horrified.</p><p>“You don’t mean to say you… you fancy him too?”</p><p>“Whyever not? A strapping handsome lad. Fine pair of legs on him, and a fine set of abdominal muscles too, I’d wager. Better looking than George bloody Gordon<a href="#byron3" id="byron3back" name="byron3back"><sup>[11]</sup></a> in any case, and George bloody Gordon got plenty of ladies, <em>and</em> gentlemen.”</p><p>Actually he said a rather ruder word than “bloody”, but the Captain substituted it in his brain.</p><p>“Oh.” The Captain shook his head, miserable. “Well, I hope you and he are happy.”</p><p>
  <em>Hold yourself together, officer. No tears. Keep the tears in. It is poor form to shed tears in front of Cosmin’s man over not getting Cosmin.</em>
</p><p>Unfortunately, the pep talk did not work, and the Captain started sobbing.</p><p>“Right. My turn to comfort you,” said Thomas in a very businesslike fashion. “Out to the garden with us.”</p><p>The Captain found himself being frogmarched out to a nice spot by the lake, where they sat down and Thomas put his arm around him.</p><p>“Alright, sir, out with it. Share with me this hideous thought which plagues your poor brain and destroys the dam restraining your tears from your wonderful sapphire eyes.”</p><p>“You,” said the Captain helplessly, tactfully ignoring the fact that his eyes apparently resembled gemstones. “I have not known him very long at all, but from what I can tell, Cosmin is the most wonderful thing ever to happen to me, and now I have got all I will ever get of him because you, damn wretched boy, are going to swoop in and enthrall him, capture his heart and romance him in the most beautiful way, and he will be unable to resist, and I will be alone still, even in death. I always knew I would be but it is just rotten to meet the man I… I really <em>love</em>, and have him snatched from before my very eyes by some jumped-up wordsmith with enough built-in openness to not be terrified out of his wits at the idea of being known as a homosexual.”</p><p>It was the first time that the Captain had actually said the word out loud, and he almost choked on his tears after he realised he had said it. He soon shook that off, however, and looked over at Thomas, who had been patiently listening, looking vaguely confused.</p><p>Thomas opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it and spoke. “You mean to say you’re scared of being known as —”</p><p>“Absolutely petrified,” the Captain said thickly, looking down at his hands and avoiding Thomas’s gaze.</p><p>Thomas frowned. “Why?”</p><p>The Captain turned on him.</p><p>“Do you know what it was like for me, man? Do you have any <em>idea</em>? Of course not. You were not there to see what happened the time that two of my men were caught in a supply closet together, exchanging green carnations<a href="#wilde1" id="wilde1back" name="wilde1back"><sup>[12]</sup></a>. It was ruled that they would be sent home for indecency. Atkins got away with that, but Collins was shot in the back by his own cousin Wells, on a dare. ‘Shoot the poof,’ they said. ‘As good as an animal, we can treat him like one. We need the target practice anyway.’”</p><p>“What did you do to Wells?” Thomas asked breathlessly.</p><p>The Captain shook his head, disbelieving.</p><p>“You still don’t get it, do you? I could do <em>nothing</em>. Had I defended the sodomy between Atkins and Collins, god bless them, my men would have assumed me to be a… a poof, a fairy, a whoopsy. And then what? And then they never ruddy well listen to me again, and they pile their jerseys on when around me, because the Captain is a pervert and he mustn’t see you with your vest unbuttoned. You had it so <em>easy</em>, Thorne. You moved in circles where nothing was questioned, nothing was too mad, too queer. If people like you got caught out as being involved in sodomy, they could just swan off to Geneva, get really bloody high on liquefied bloody opium and reinvent ghost stories<a href="#byron4" id="byron4back" name="byron4back"><sup>[13]</sup></a>, but I had to live out the consequences of my actions, which is why I never took any actions in the first place. And you expect me to just undo all my years of training to be scared of being known like that, at the snap of your fingers?”</p><p>Thomas was still frowning. Cross, the Captain ploughed on.</p><p>“Atkins and Collins are only one example. I remember one of the boys in my English literature class at school, when we were reading <em>Dorian Gray</em>, got just a little too invested in Basil Hallward’s affection for Dorian<a href="#wilde2" id="wilde2back" name="wilde2back"><sup>[14]</sup></a>. Of course we all knew about the 1895 Oscar Wilde trial<a href="#wilde3" id="wilde3back" name="wilde3back"><sup>[15]</sup></a>, and poor James Harris was beaten to pieces next time we played rugger in games class, while everyone laughed. Or… or… if a fellow even looked at his mate in the wrong way down the pub on an evening during the War, he would be singled out and mocked endlessly, called bent, for a bit of drunken banter. It was brutal. I was the mate in that situation one time, and the barmaid made a move with me, tried to kiss me, to prove to little Linus Godfrey how I loved women, and I only escaped her by telling a quick story of my girl Lucy back home. Linus loved women, and I did not. I never got a single kiss in my life or death until you, Thomas, and that is entirely due to the fact that I never dared to show my truth to myself, let alone to the men I fancied, because I was taken over by fear, and rightly so.”</p><p>Fuming, the Captain leaned back, hands on his knees, and tried to stay quiet for a while so that Thomas could take in what he had said.</p><p>“Back up a minute,” Thomas said. “Forget the stuff about fear of openness: what in god’s name are you on about with reference to myself and Cosmin?”</p><p>“You <em>admire</em> him,” the Captain spat bitterly. “He will naturally choose you over me.”</p><p>“There is no choice for him to make,” Thomas said gently. “I make no move here.”</p><p>“What.”</p><p>“Besides,” Thomas continued, “why would he not choose you? Why would he not choose the dashing army man, like Kitty and Lydia Bennet<a href="#austen1" id="austen1back" name="austen1back"><sup>[16]</sup></a> did? Why would he not choose the organised, idiosyncratic, kind, well-meaning man who despite not being a gentleman by title is everything required of a gentleman in terms of chivalry? You and he are kindred spirits of a kind: both brave military men, leaders, trapped for eternity in this —”</p><p>“Spare me the melodrama, Thorne,” the Captain interrupted, smiling through his tears. “I believe I understand your point.”</p><p>“Yes, well. I hope it will do some good.”</p><p>Thomas glanced up and saw Alison crossing the garden. He called out to her, claiming that there was something of great importance to be discussed, and scurried off, leaving the Captain festering in a puddle of misery and self-doubt.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="rommel1" name="rommel1"></a>1. Erwin Rommel, 1891 to 1944, was the Field Marshal of the German army during the War, and famously led German troops in the battles in North Africa (his British counterpart was Bernard Montgomery, the “Monty” to whom the Captain refers in “Happy Deathday”). <a href="#rommel1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="latin1" name="latin1"></a>2. Latin: “… sixty nine, seventy, seventy one. Seventy one beats per minute.” He’s counting heartbeats. <a href="#latin1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="latin2" name="latin2"></a>3. A greeting in Latin. The Captain correctly uses the singular form here. “Salve” and its plural form “salvete” are some of the first bits of Latin that are taught to kids at school. <a href="#latin2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="byron2" name="byron2"></a>4. A quote from Byron’s poem “So We’ll Go No More a-Roving”, the same piece from which I take my username. <a href="#byron2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="rommel2" name="rommel2"></a>5. The aforementioned Rommel / Montgomery battle. <a href="#rommel2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="latin3" name="latin3"></a>6. Latin: “my friend”. <a href="#latin3back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="claudius1" name="claudius1"></a>7. Britain (minus Scotland); the Romans did do this, in 43 AD, and afterwards they kept a heck tonne of soldiers over there (thanks, Bob Hale), so Cosmin’s being in England is historically accurate. <a href="#claudius1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="eros1" name="eros1"></a>8. Greek god of [physical] love. The Roman equivalent is Cupid. <a href="#eros1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="fussbudget1" name="fussbudget1"></a>9. A wonderful Regency-era word meaning someone overly fussy, annoying or particular. This includes the use of “—budget” as an emphasising suffix. <a href="#fussbudget1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="whitman1" name="whitman1"></a>10. Thomas is correct here. (Yes, I know this from my favourite movie of all time, “Dead Poets Society”, now shut up.) <a href="#whitman1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="byron3" name="byron3"></a>11. Byron, again. <a href="#byron3back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="wilde1" name="wilde1"></a>12. Green carnations are used to secretly signify homosexuality in men, a trend started by Oscar Wilde. <a href="#wilde1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="byron4" name="byron4"></a>13. The Captain is alluding to 1816, when Byron (whose sex with men and also with his own half-sister had caused a lot of scandal) did exactly that: swanned off to Lake Geneva (with John Polidori, Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin and Claire Clairmont), got incredibly high on laudanum, and reinvented ghost stories. (Actually, that bit was Mary Shelley née Godwin.) <a href="#byron4back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="wilde2" name="wilde2"></a>14. It’s pretty difficult to deny that Basil is gay for Dorian. <a href="#wilde2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="wilde3" name="wilde3"></a>15. Homosexuality trial. He was convicted. <a href="#wilde3back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="austen1" name="austen1"></a>16. From “Pride &amp; Prejudice”. These two characters spend the whole book fancying a bunch of officers. <a href="#austen1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompted, surprisingly, by Thomas, Alison takes matters into her own hands and educates the ghosts.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I mean, yeah, of course. I thought this would be to do with your love for me or something, but this…. Absolutely,” Alison said.</p><p>“I would be right in saying it is more widely accepted these days?” Thomas questioned. Alison thought she detected something of a personal note in his voice.</p><p>“Oh, yeah. Way more accepted than, say, Regency era or even Julian’s time. I don’t think <em>any</em> of the Button House ghosts were still alive by the time the legal age of consent was made equal for same-sex acts. That happened in, like, 2000<a href="#gay1" id="gay1back" name="gay1back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>.”</p><p>“Yes, well, quite. But you could do a little research and tell us about it? I think that one or two of us would appreciate a small reminder that we are not lesser for our inclinations. Ehh, not that I am one of that sort of person,” Thomas said.</p><p>Alison raised an eyebrow, and Thomas winked jokingly. Her suspicion was that he was in fact one of that sort of person and not truly bothered to hide it, which she found amusing.</p><p>“Sure, Tommy boy. No problem. But hey, do you know what the deal is with that Roman guy who turned up?”</p><p>“Cosmin,” Thomas said instantly. “The Captain found him. Just antisocial, apparently, so never bothered to show up and talk to us. Knew Robin, though.”</p><p>“Huh. Well, I’m pretty knowledgeable on that stuff anyway, but I will do a quick refresher course for myself and then I will be right along.”</p><p>“I am ever so obliged to you, my lady.”</p><p>“Shut up. Oh, and Thomas?”</p><p>“My lady?”</p><p>“Thanks for stopping with the weird creepy stuff.”</p><p>Thomas shrugged.</p><p>“One could say I have found distractions.”</p><p>Alison raised an eyebrow, but didn’t want to push her luck in the questions department, so she headed off to the kitchen and her laptop. After a bit of ferocious Googling (which she hoped would turn out to be worthwhile), she was nearly ready. Mike arrived and kissed her on the forehead. She smiled up at him.</p><p>“What’s the story, love?” he asked. “Why are you searching that stuff? I thought we knew more than enough.”</p><p>“Teaching the ghosts about Pride. Wish me luck.”</p><p>“I thought you said one of them was gay,” Mike said, confusedly.</p><p>“No yeah, any idiot can tell that the Captain is into men, but I doubt he’s ever admitted it. Besides, can’t hurt to educate them all, hmm?”</p><p>“So proud of you.”</p><p>Mike kissed her forehead again, then wandered off to the shops.</p><p>That evening after dinner, Alison rounded the ghosts up — which included collecting a thoroughly dejected-looking Captain from beside the lake, where Thomas had left him — and sat them all down in front of the projector which she had hooked up to her laptop.</p><p>Pat and Kitty were discussing the pros and cons of different sorts of dogs, while the new addition, Cosmin, was having an incredibly sincere conversation with Julian about the sex lives of ancient Romans. Cosmin was totally missing both the fact that Julian found sex funny and the fact that the Captain could not divert his gaze from Cosmin.</p><p>The Captain himself was leaning forward in a manner that did not suit an officer at all. He was resting his weight on his forearms, which were on his knees. He looked ready to drop his head into his hands at any minute.</p><p>Alison cast a worried glance at the Captain, but clapped her hands to get the ghosts’ attention.</p><p>“Right, people. It has come to my attention that the whole lot of you are missing a serious amount of information about gay rights.”</p><p>They slowly stopped chattering, and Alison could see each of them replaying what she had just said.</p><p>“Am I missing something here?” Kitty asked. “I never knew ‘gay’ to mean anything other than ‘happy’, but with the context….”</p><p>Alison sighed.</p><p>“Oh, well, from the basics, then. ‘Gay’ is the accepted umbrella term used for anyone who is not straight. A straight person would be someone who exclusively fancies one gender that is not their own. With me so far?”</p><p>There were nods all around, but the Captain said in a pained undertone, “Must we discuss this?”</p><p>Alison ignored that.</p><p>“Basically, gay people have been getting more and more rights over the past while. I think gay marriage was legalised in 2013 or 2014. In England and Wales, anyway. Not sure about Northern Ireland or Scotland, but I think that the Republic of Ireland followed in 2015.”</p><p>“Sorry, <em>marriage</em>?” the Captain blurted.</p><p>“Yeah, a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman,” Alison said blankly, but she slowly realised how strange that would seem to the Captain, who had grown up in the first half of the twentieth century.</p><p>“But you… what? It’s <em>legal</em>?” the Captain asked desperately. He seemed pained.</p><p>“No yeah, of course. Took them a while, but yeah. The legal age of consent was higher for same sex couples for a while, but… yeah.”</p><p>“Age of consent?” Kitty asked innocently.</p><p>“For sex,” Julian said wisely. Lady Button frowned and huffed. The Captain looked horrified (or perhaps it was something else). Pat gently squeezed Kitty’s hand. The ghosts looked at each other for a second longer.</p><p>“But it’s allowed?” the Captain pressed eventually. “Two men can…?”</p><p>“What, marry? Yep,” said Alison, who knew full well what he really meant, deciding to see how explicit a reference to intercourse the Captain would make if he had to.</p><p>“No, not marry. The other thing,” he said, looking resolutely at his boots.</p><p>“He means shagging,” Julian informed her.</p><p>Utterly predictably, the Captain flushed bright red and stated: “Good lord.”</p><p>“Julian, shut <em>up</em>. Captain… yes, sex between men is allowed. Sex between women was never fully outlawed, but it was a voyeuristic thing… never mind.”</p><p>“Oh. I see.” The Captain straightened up again, put his hands on his knees like a boy in a school sports team photo, and feigned total disinterest.</p><p>“Okay, now we all understand the decriminalisation of homosexuality, can I continue? There is more, you know. Whole parades dedicated to being proud of not being straight.”</p><p>“Go ahead,” Mary said, smiling.</p><p>“Rome never made it illegal in the first place,” Cosmin murmured.</p><p>“Continue if you must,” said Humphrey(’s head), bored, from where he lay on the table.</p><p>Alison took a deep breath, then continued. “Feel free to interrupt me if at any point something needs further explanation. Okay, there are a bunch of different terms for the ways in which people experience attraction, and each has their own flag, which I personally think is really cute, and I am saying in advance that I accept all sexualities, and anyone who is mean to another because of their sexuality is in huge trouble. Right. A gay person could be anyone who is not straight, but it also specifically means someone who exclusively fancies members of their own gender, so you would talk about gay men or gay women, although gay women can also be called lesbians. Yes, Mary?”</p><p>“Can I see the flag for girls loving just the girls?”</p><p>“Oh, absolutely. Let me just get it up on the projector here. There we go. I love the combo of orange and pink. Fantastic. Okay, another orientation would be bisexual. Any guesses on what that means? Thomas?”</p><p>“The prefix ‘bi—’ means ‘two’, so I’m guessing it is to do with that.”</p><p>“Yeah, bang on. Bisexual means someone who fancies at least two different genders, usually male and female. Yeah, there are other genders, Kitty, give me a minute to get to that. People who are bisexual, or bi, usually fancy men and women, and sometimes in between too. Some prefer one gender or another, and some have no preference. I am bi, and so is my husband. Any questions on that one? What, Thomas?”</p><p>“Flag?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, hang on, just a sec. It has a hot pink and a blue, with purple dividing them, but I never remember which way up. Ahh, there we go. Pink on top.”</p><p>“That one would be me,” Thomas said casually, leaning back, crossing his arms and putting his feet up. “My attractions were described by my contemporaries as being free, unbound by such simple matters as gender. I do prefer women, though. Women are great. So pretty and curvy.”</p><p>He trailed off, gazing dreamily into the middle distance.</p><p>“Umm, thank you for that. I am sure I speak for us all in saying that we are completely chill with your bisexuality.”</p><p>Lady Button sniffed huffily.</p><p>“Speak for yourself. Inclinations like those are what ruined my marriage and ultimately killed me.”</p><p>“With all due respect, Lady Button, the effect would have been just the same if your husband had been in a… a <em>Moroccan teaparty</em> with two women,” Thomas snapped, and Alison could have sworn she saw a tender glance across the room.</p><p>Thomas was checking on the Captain.</p><p>“Okay,” Alison said, rushing on and hurriedly Googling, “as I said, there are flags for all the sexualities. Here is the gay male flag, for men who exclusively like men.”</p><p>She watched as the Captain looked up, being so careful not to move his head or give any sign he cared, but definitely taking in the greens, blues and turquoises with an air of silent appreciation.</p><p>“Madam, I thank you. It is not every day I discover a new flag to represent myself,” Cosmin said, bowing his head.</p><p>Immediately, the Captain twisted around, one hand on the back of his chair and the other still on his knee, to stare hopelessly at Cosmin. He seemed totally unaware that this behaviour was slightly erratic. His eyes were scanning Cosmin’s face desperately, searching for something.</p><p>“Steady on, mate, you might want to be a bit more subtle than that,” Julian said awkwardly.</p><p>The Captain looked slowly up at Julian, and then the reality of how obvious he had been seemed to dawn on him. He looked horrified, then fled from the room.</p><p>Not wanting to draw attention to him, Alison carried on with her lesson, which proved pretty productive. Almost all of the ghosts came out in one way or another.</p><p>When Alison described what being ace meant, Kitty gave a soft “oh” and said that that suited her quite well, although she did like both men and women romantically. The following conversation about demisexuality seemed to mean a lot to Pat.</p><p>The label of pansexuality appealed to Julian. As he put it: “You think I care what someone has between their legs? So long as I have access to it, I couldn’t care less what it is.” He also grasped onto the idea of being aromantic, at which point Robin concurred with reference to himself, but added that he was also, like Kitty, asexual.</p><p>When they got onto the genders, everyone kept quieter. They seemed uneasy, until Mary asked if someone could feel female, yet simultaneously genderless. Alison went through the various identities that could apply to this, and Mary got more and more specific with her description of the gender, before eventually settling on bigender: female and nonbinary.</p><p>“That be me. The bigenders,” she said, nervously.</p><p>“Fair enough, Mary,” Pat said, smiling softly. Alison was quite pleased with her work.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="gay1" name="gay1"></a>1. All dates Alison gives in this chapter are accurate. <a href="#gay1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Upset and angry at himself, the Captain shuts himself in a bathroom (well, walks into a shut bathroom) to sulk.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Captain could not <em>believe</em> himself. How could he have been so foolish as to gaze so obviously, to admire so openly?</p><p><em>And yet,</em> said the portion of his brain that handled matters to do with handsome men, <em>he did look awfully dashing.</em></p><p>Hiding himself in the same bathroom that contained his memories of lustfully snogging Thomas, he sat on the edge of the bath and tried extremely hard not to cry. He felt like a schoolboy again, locked in a bathroom stall in the changing rooms because he was scared of the upper-sixth boys when they had their shirts off.<em> Should have known then, really,</em> he mused. He recalled tracing his fingertips over the writing on the wall that said unkind things about the teachers, said creepy things about the girls in the next-door school, and simply told rude jokes, before coming across his own name, scrawled beside a questionable drawing of a cigarette<a href="#gay2" id="gay2back" name="gay2back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>.</p><p>Back then, he had been too young to understand the implications of that, but time and an experience of army life had taught him enough to get the idea.</p><p>“Excuse me,” a voice at the entrance said. “May I come in?”</p><p>“If you must,” the Captain said, straightening his tie and gathering himself.</p><p>Cosmin phased through the door.</p><p>“Oh, jolly good,” the Captain whispered, his mouth dry, before remembering his situation.</p><p>Cosmin sat down to the left of the Captain, and snaked his arm around the Captain’s waist, fingers tight on the regulation cloth of the army uniform, palm on the Sam Browne. “I hope you are alright, my friend, and that you will continue to talk to me despite my… presumably sinful… attractions.”</p><p>The Captain was not very good at multitasking, and was trying to figure out whether it would be acceptable to lean into Cosmin’s side, rest his head on Cosmin’s shoulder, that kind of thing, so it took him a second to recognise what Cosmin had said.</p><p>“Sir, I do assure you, nothing so trivial as that could prevent our friendship, should you wish it to continue.”</p><p>Really, he was tired of acting the manly, strong one with Thomas. He wanted to be babied and pandered to, indulged. He wanted to be embraced by Cosmin. What was that marvellous word sometimes used? <em>Cuddle</em>, that was the one. He wanted to be cuddled; he wanted to be the one who could sit still while a strong beautiful man did the work and kissed him gently. He wanted to bury his face in Cosmin’s chest, wrap his arms around Cosmin’s middle, and cry into the tunic. He wanted to finally have the opportunity to unabashedly show his weaknesses and have them protected by his man.</p><p>“It was good of Alison to teach us those terms,” Cosmin said.</p><p>“Yes,” the Captain agreed slowly. “It was rather. The end effects may not be desirable, but she meant well.”</p><p>“The end effects?” Cosmin asked, looking down at the Captain with a look of tender concern.</p><p>“Did you <em>hear</em> what Fanny said? She blames people like… like you for her death!”</p><p>“She didn’t know any better.”</p><p>“Oh, she did,” said the Captain grimly. “You haven’t been here that long, but I can assure you, on the occasions where Julian has made indecent comments about men, she has not taken it well. She has <em>always</em> behaved like that.”</p><p>Embarrassingly, his voice cracked. He coughed to hide it, but that did not work. Cosmin laughed, pulling him in to right beside him.</p><p>“What are you, fourteen years old?” he inquired of the Captain, jokingly.</p><p>“Might as well bloody be sometimes,” the Captain said, sniffing and shakily (he felt himself shivering) taking the opportunity to lean into Cosmin’s chest, since he was practically there already. “I feel as though I am back where I was at fourteen.”</p><p>
  <em>Falling uselessly in love with a very lovely person of the male gender, although this time there is the difference of my awareness of my own feelings. Oh lord, look at him. He is looking at me. Dare I kiss him? No, not without knowing whether he feels for me, and whether he wants me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It has turned out, though, that he fancies men. God. Just my luck; he is attainable in every way except the final one: whether he actually loves me.</em>
</p><p>Cosmin reached over with his left hand, and adjusted a stray strand of the Captain’s hair that had somehow come loose, tucking it back in. His touch was light, fleeting and caring. The pads of his fingers felt soft and so, so <em>right</em> on the Captain’s forehead.</p><p>Not for the first time that day, the Captain struggled to contain his tears. He could feel them, ready to spill from his eyes. He dared not move to brush them away, lest Cosmin should notice.</p><p>“Cap?”</p><p>The Captain looked up, shuddering a little from the use of a nickname. It felt like such an intimate thing. He smiled hopefully.</p><p>
  <em>A kiss would be great right about now.</em>
</p><p>“Please do not cry. I hope you are not too badly sad. Do you need to talk about it?”</p><p>Remembering what had happened the last time one man had comforted another in that bathroom, the Captain blushed. “No, you need not bother yourself. Thank you, though.”</p><p>“It is <em>no</em> bother,” Cosmin insisted.</p><p>
  <em>God, he’s so kind.</em>
</p><p>The Captain started to talk. “I am not supposed to have feelings. I am an army Captain, and all the ghosts know that I might get annoyed, or occasionally amused, but never genuinely sad, or joyous, or god forbid in <em>love</em>. This is not supposed to happen! I am not supposed to get sad!”</p><p>“I see what you mean. My legionnaires<a href="#roman1" id="roman1back" name="roman1back"><sup>[2]</sup></a> never really understood when I got sad either. They thought I was above all emotion, only a war machine.”</p><p>“I can relate to that,” the Captain laughed. “One must hide any feelings for fear of losing the respect of the soldiers.”</p><p>“Well, quite.”</p><p>It seemed to the Captain to be an awful shame to totally waste an opportunity for a heart-to-heart with Cosmin, so he took a slow breath and plunged in the metaphorical deep end.</p><p>“So, you, err… you like men?”</p><p>“I do, yes. Men are beautiful.”</p><p>
  <em>I quite agree, sir. Especially with reference to the one holding me right now.</em>
</p><p>“Well, humans are wonderful creatures. Kind, often,” the Captain said, really wishing to avoid any questions about his own <em>sexuality</em>. “Never had a girl, myself. Somehow never found the time.”</p><p>Cosmin considered the Captain. “Yes, well. I never had anyone either. Died before I got the chance. Knew I liked men, though. I always wished I had had someone. Seemed like a nice thing, you know? To have a relationship.”</p><p>“Well, I, err. Yes, I suppose.”</p><p>“I apologise, amicus meus. Do I make you uncomfortable with my talk of pretty men?”</p><p>
  <em>Nothing delights me more than hearing you wax poetical about men. I just wish it were me you wanted.</em>
</p><p>“What does that mean? The Latin thing you just called me.”</p><p>“What, ‘amicus meus’? It means ‘my friend’.”</p><p>As he spoke, Cosmin gently brushed away with his thumb the few tears that had managed to sneak out of the Captain’s eyes. The Captain looked back up at him, and Cosmin froze when they made eye contact. His hand remained on the Captain’s jaw. The word <em>caressing</em> sprung to the Captain’s mind, and he blushed again. He moved forward, twitched, an infinitesimal amount, praying that Cosmin would not notice, but alas, it was detected.</p><p>Cosmin glanced at the Captain’s lips, gesturing with a slight movement of his head.</p><p>“May I…?”</p><p>He moved closer, bringing his other hand up too to fully cup the Captain’s face, tilting it up gently, but still checking for permission. The pair of them gazed into each other’s eyes. Cosmin’s had tiny crinkles all around them, from his damned gorgeous smile. The tension heightened until it was unbearable. Cosmin still was not moving, because he had received no answer.</p><p>“No!” the Captain burst out. “No, sir, you may not!”</p><p>He pulled away harshly, tearing himself from Cosmin’s touch. He retreated hastily, shoving Cosmin away with a hand to his chest.</p><p>Cosmin looked surprised and just a little hurt.</p><p>“Cap, please, I —”</p><p>“Oh, no, sir. Do not call me that. No nicknames. I am very displeased that you would even dare to believe I would want to engage in <em>that</em> sort of behaviour.”</p><p>“Sir, I do most humbly beg you for your pardon.”</p><p>“You have it. Now I… must go.”</p><p>The Captain rushed away, ran to the lake, and walked straight towards the middle of it, as far as he could before it got too deep for him. There he turned and stood, miserable, letting the tears pour.</p><p>He allowed himself to cry, and to feel real emotion. He could have killed himself for not taking the chance. Cosmin had offered to kiss him.</p><p>
  <em>Really? Cop on, man, there is no way that that is what he meant. He never said what exactly he was asking permission to do. It could have been anything.</em>
</p><p>He put his face in his hands and groaned, cursing himself.</p><p>
  <em>He does not love me as anything other than a friend. That is, after all, what he called me. I suppose I ought to be grateful for that, but after staring into his eyes it is rather difficult.</em>
</p><p>The Captain sighed, clambered out of the lake, and traipsed back to his bedroom. He lay down and stayed very still, having cleaned from his face any signs of having been upset.</p><p>After an hour or so of sleepless night, the Captain heard someone walking up to his door. He sat up so as to look vaguely dignified. Cosmin entered slowly. The Captain flopped back down.</p><p>“I apologise, Captain. I do hate to sleep on my own, and I was wondering….”</p><p>“You have managed just fine for a couple of millennia already, now bugger off,” the Captain said, face-down in his pillow.</p><p>“Captain, I cannot express how much I regret whatever it was that I did earlier to upset you. Please, I beg of you, forgive me.”</p><p>The Captain looked up.</p><p>“Fine, man, you can share my room. On one condition.”</p><p>“Anything.”</p><p>“Stop calling me Captain. <em>Everyone</em> calls me that. Go back to using Cap.”</p><p>“You want me to count separately from everyone else?” Cosmin said eagerly, a grin splitting his face and warming the Captain’s heart (and face… <em>again</em>).</p><p>The Captain stood up to properly face Cosmin, cleared his throat, and nodded.</p><p>“You are a good friend, my man.”</p><p>Cosmin took one fluid step forward and hugged the Captain tight to him. In surprise, the Captain dropped his swagger stick, but he returned the embrace as soon as he regained his senses. He found himself being lifted onto tiptoes by the taller Cosmin, and Cosmin’s hands were once again resting on the back of the Sam Browne. The Captain tightened his arms around Cosmin’s neck, one hand in those sublime curls, and breathed in a slight scent of smoke.</p><p>
  <em>Not bad smoke. Good smoke, like from a fire that food gets cooked on.</em>
</p><p>He held on for dear life (death). The couple of hours in which he had thought he had lost the only real friend he had ever possessed had made him more determined than ever to stay on Cosmin’s good side.</p><p>The Captain found his own chest heaving, and giggled slightly.</p><p>“Goodness, Cap, you are becoming frightfully silly. I have no idea what kind of influence I am on you,” Cosmin told him. “No good one, I suspect.”</p><p>“You are the best influence I have ever had,” the Captain whispered. He <em>heard</em> Cosmin smile at that.</p><p>Cosmin took a step forward. The Captain stepped back to match him, but he stumbled, and the pair of them fell backwards onto the bed, still entwined in each other’s arms.</p><p>They did not let go, but stayed like that, comfortably lying together.</p><p>
  <em>Even if we cannot be lovers, I am more than happy with a friendship that includes tactile moments like this.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="gay2" name="gay2"></a>1. An allusion to a certain slur used against gay people. I am nonstraight myself, but am opting not to explicitly mention this slur. <a href="#gay2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="roman1" name="roman1"></a>2. Roman soldiers of the lowest rank; Cosmin would have been in charge of a hundred of them. <a href="#roman1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Captain and Cosmin are becoming more and more comfortable around each other; so much so that a couple of the other ghosts decide to poke fun at them.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next three months contained nothing but joy for the Captain. He and Cosmin became closer and closer, and found many shared interests.</p><p>For example, within the first five days of Cosmin’s arrival, the Captain was sitting down to his weekly hour of the tank show, and found a smiling Roman Centurion peeking over his shoulder from behind.</p><p>“What is happening?” Cosmin asked. He sat on the back of the sofa, swung his legs over the top, and sank down beside the Captain.</p><p>“I am watching a show.”</p><p>Cosmin peered at the screen, which was currently displaying a Sainsbury’s ad. “Sort of like a play?”</p><p>“A bit, yes. If you wait a minute, my show will come on.”</p><p>They sat in silence for a bit, and then Sainsbury’s decided they were done advertising tins of baked beans for nineteen twentieths of the usual price, and the tank show started.</p><p>Cosmin <em>loved</em> it.</p><p>He gasped at the tanks, astonished at how war equipment had developed from the basic onagers and catapults of his day.</p><p>The Captain had hated the War, and he still did, but he had a sort of grim fascination with it that allowed him to obsessively view programmes about it. He had to know everything about the War: its cause, its course, its consequences, the things that were invented during or for it, the facts and figures of the deaths, everything. It helped him to rationalise his left-over fear from the battlefields. When he found it presented to him as something to study and learn about in a controlled, academic environment, he was able to somewhat forget the reality of the screams of his soldiers, of the guns and mines, and of the ringing in his ears after an explosion particularly close to him.</p><p>Having Cosmin near him at the times when he was watching it on television helped hugely. The Captain found himself able to curl up (something he had essentially never done before) calmly, and more often than not there was an arm around his shoulders by the end of it.</p><p>Occasionally, when it became particularly interesting, Cosmin would unwittingly allow his fingers to dig into the Captain’s arm. The Captain took this as his signal to bring his legs up onto the sofa beside him, lean in to Cosmin, and sigh contentedly.</p><p>Once or twice Julian made a snide comment about the Captain and Cosmin being “a little too comfortable together while watching that bloody war programme”, but afterwards the Captain gave him a sharp rap on the knuckles with his swagger stick, and Julian didn’t push it.</p><p>“I think they’re sweet, Jules,” Pat said happily one day after Julian had said something along those lines. (The Captain pretended he couldn’t hear; <em>really</em> he was watching Cosmin demonstrating the sword techniques used by gladiators.)</p><p>“I bet the Captain is jolly pleased with himself,” he heard Thomas add. “Cosmin’s a good catch.”</p><p>“So are they official?” Julian asked.</p><p>Thomas scoffed. “Of course not, but there is no way Cosmin is going to become official with anyone else while he has this…”</p><p>“… bromance…” Julian put in.</p><p>“… exactly. While he has this bromance to take up all of his time. I mean, <em>look</em> at them.”</p><p>Cosmin had tackled the Captain, rugby-style, and had received an elbow in the ribs in response. The two of them had fallen back onto an armchair, giggling, and Cosmin was sitting on <em>top</em> of the Captain. The Captain, listening to the men behind him, did realise just how domestically romantic this would appear to be, but was no longer prepared to sacrifice a moment of exquisite happiness just to preserve his reputation.</p><p>“And the Captain has eyes for nobody else?” Pat asked.</p><p>The Captain could just <em>hear</em> Thomas’s sceptical eyebrow raise, but ignored it, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt about whether he would spill.</p><p>“Couldn’t possibly say.”</p><p>
  <em>Good man Thorne.</em>
</p><p>Cosmin, still sitting atop his friend, hugged the Captain, who responded in the same way. Cosmin was still laughing gently from the playful attack. The Captain was suddenly terribly aware that his hands were flat on Cosmin’s back, and he could feel muscles twitching.</p><p>“Do you know any Latin?” Cosmin asked suddenly.</p><p>“Very little. ‘Amo amas amat’, and that is about it, I’m afraid. Never listened to it in school.” <em>And now I wish I had.</em></p><p>“‘Amo amas amat’ meaning…?” Cosmin asked coyly, looking down at the Captain, arms around the Captain’s neck.</p><p>The Captain cleared his throat. “Ahem, conjugation of the verb ‘to love’, I believe.”</p><p><em>Amo vir.</em> <a href="#latin4" id="latin4back" name="latin4back"> <sup>[1]</sup> </a></p><p>“Quite so, my dear. I declare you are a genius.”</p><p>“You’re the one who speaks the language properly,” the Captain laughed, “and English besides. Very good English, I might add.”</p><p><em>Ego amare Cosmin.</em> <a href="#latin5" id="latin5back" name="latin5back"><sup>[2]</sup> </a></p><p>“You think so?” Cosmin looked gratified.</p><p>“I know so.”</p><p><em>Eum amo.</em> <a href="#latin6" id="latin6back" name="latin6back"><sup>[3]</sup> </a></p><p>“Well, I would do anything to be able to speak to my darling friend, and since he is too lazy to learn Latin…!”</p><p>“Lazy! Oh, how dare you! I am terribly offended.”</p><p>Cosmin laughed again. Their faces were very close together as they spoke in undertones to each other. They could feel the others’ gazes on them, but neither of them cared. Cosmin’s hands were resting on the tops of the Captain’s shoulders, inside his jacket. One of the Captain’s hands was on Cosmin’s lower (very <em>much</em> lower) back.</p><p>The Captain knew how it would seem, but somehow did not care. It was not worth wasting time worrying about what people thought of him, unless he was in any real danger.</p><p>
  <em>The thing that would really complete this is a kiss. His bare calves are resting against the inside of my arm as he sits sideways on top of me, and my lips are within six inches of his; it would be the perfect moment. I sound like Wilde. Cosmin is so beautiful, and I am so glad to know him and laugh with him and talk to him about war (I wonder which of us outranks the other) and stay still with his arm around me and….</em>
</p><p>Cosmin kissed the Captain on the cheek.</p><p>By the time the Captain had registered this, Cosmin had leapt up off his knee and was saying:</p><p>“I must go, my dear. I told Alison I would help her with the cooking. Food in ancient Rome was wonderful, you know.”</p><p>He tapped his nose and walked off, leaving a gobsmacked Captain gently touching the spot (just below the cheekbone, on the left side of his face) that Cosmin had kissed.</p><p>The room seemed pretty quiet. Then, apparently having the same idea at nearly the same time, Thomas and Julian both loudly cleared their throats, imitating the Captain.</p><p>“Guys,” Pat scolded, but Robin snorted with laughter.</p><p>“The Captain don’t need you to make fun out of him,” Mary added.</p><p>The Captain got up, smoothed his uniform, and stalked sulkily out of the room, casting a dirty glare back at Thomas and Julian, but he waited outside to hear anything more they said; he’d learnt the hard way that they did mock him when they thought he was out of earshot.</p><p>“Ooh, we’re in trouble now,” Thomas joked, then put on a voice to say: “ ‘I’m sorry for making a laughing-stock of you, sir.’ Ha. Will that do?”</p><p>“Bloody hell, he really isn’t very subtle, though, is he?” Julian mused. “He really was… uhh… Thomas, what’s that wonderful Regency expression for blushing?”</p><p>“To be ‘flying one’s colours’?” Thomas offered.</p><p>“Yeah! That’s the one.”</p><p>“He was rather, wasn’t he?” Thomas stifled a laugh.</p><p>“Thomas, lay off it!” Kitty snapped. “Would it kill you to let him be happy without being bothered by you lot? Cosmin’s the first real friend he’s <em>had</em> in his time here.”</p><p>The Captain smiled softly. <em>Oh, bless Katherine.</em></p><p>“Oh, Kitty, don’t. It was Julian’s fault!” Thomas complained.</p><p>“No, Thomas, shut <em>up</em> and let me make my point. You weren’t there when I talked to him after we all made fun of him. He was <em>really</em> upset by the whole thing, but especially the fact that you called him a walrus. He does take charge more than he ought, yes, but I’ve realised that he hardly knows he’s doing it. And I know he wouldn’t do it if he thought he could lose us for it. He was so upset and sad. He was trying to not look it, but I could tell. And I talked to the plague ghosts afterwards, because he must have gone down there to know about the mass grave thing. THEY TOLD HIM FALLINGS-OUT COULD LAST TWO AND A HALF DECADES, THOMAS. Now I know the Captain better than he thinks I do, and I know he was absolutely terrified at the idea that we might all hate him for that long. He was in bits. He <em>heard</em> us from the corridor. We were all so mean and I don’t know about you, but personally I’m really ashamed. He was too controlling, yes, and treated us like soldiers, yes, but be that as it may our behaviour was unacceptable.”</p><p>There was silence, and the Captain, leaning against the wall outside the door, felt like crying.</p><p>
  <em>Kitty noticed. She paid attention. God, it feels so good to not be insignificant to everyone.</em>
</p><p>“He heard us?” Thomas whispered.</p><p>“He did.”</p><p>“He heard the walrus comment?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>. Now for the love of god, Thomas, lay off him and let him be happy in peace. God knows he deserves it.”</p><p>“Might just… ah… ease off the teasing for a bit,” Julian said, while presumably adjusting his tie.</p><p>“I agree,” Thomas admitted quietly.</p><p>It was an incident that did affect how the Captain was feeling, but, over the next few weeks, Cosmin picked up on his friend’s being in low spirits and took every opportunity to try and cheer him up.</p><p>His first cheering-up attempt, implemented when he found the Captain sulking on his (their) bed, involved trying to playfight with him, but the Captain, it seemed, was not in the mood. He smiled at Cosmin, but it looked forced and painful.</p><p>The second attempt worked a little more. Cosmin convinced Alison that the Captain just needed to watch a little television. Alison put the 1995 adaptation of <em>Pride &amp; Prejudice</em> on in the Captain’s room and left them to it.</p><p>They both loved it, and although neither would admit it, they both found Mr Darcy to be an absolute dear. (When questioned afterwards, the Captain would forever maintain that they had been watching an informative programme on the Luftwaffe.) Cosmin mentioned that he could understand Kitty’s and Lydia’s obsession with military men, but (for the sake of subtlety) the Captain pretended he had not heard.</p><p>The third attempt was a simple walk in the grounds, exchanging stories of battles. This had a negative effect as the Captain became overwhelmed and needed comforting (in the form of excessive hugs, naturally).</p><p>The fourth attempt was comprised of watching a series of very amusing videos, made by some chaps called Armstrong and Miller, about a pair of RAF pilots<a href="#raf1" id="raf1back" name="raf1back"><sup>[4]</sup></a>. The Captain wound up laughing into Cosmin’s chest multiple times.</p><p>These were all good, in their places, but it was the fifth attempt to make the Captain happy that was the icing on the metaphorical cake.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="latin4" name="latin4"></a>1. Latin: “I love a man.” (Since Latin has no articles, this could also mean “I love the man”, but take it from me that the Captain intends the former interpretation.) <a href="#latin4back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="latin5" name="latin5"></a>2. “I love Cosmin.” <a href="#latin5back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="latin6" name="latin6"></a>3. “I love him.” <a href="#latin6back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p><p><a id="raf1" name="raf1"></a>4. Absolutely wonderful; highly recommend. OH WOW. AFTER PUBLISHING THIS CHAPTER, I DECIDED TO GO ON YOUTUBE AND REWATCH SOME ARMSTRONG AND MILLER PILOTS, AND THERE WAS ANOTHER GUY IN THE SCENE AND I WAS LIKE “WOW THAT LOOKS LIKE JIM HOWICK BUT NAHHH” AND THEN A BIT LATER THERE WAS A WOMAN AND I WAS LIKE “YEAH WAIT BUT THAT DEFINITELY LOOKS LIKE MARTHA HOWE DOUGLAS” AND I GOOGLED IT AND LONG STORY SHORT THEY’RE BOTH IN IT. <a href="#raf1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>So much happens in this that a summary would be pointless.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been a long day and a long week, and the Captain had retired to his bedchamber early, as he was inclined to do those days. He had been slowly becoming more comfortable with being relaxed, and had actually removed some of his clothes to sleep the past few nights.</p><p>He unbuckled his Sam Browne belt and laid it on the bedside cabinet next to his swagger stick. He then removed his boots and socks and placed them neatly on the floor. Finally, he took his jacket off, smoothed it out, and hung it on the bedpost.</p><p>Having relinquished the garments that identified him as an officer, he felt somewhat vulnerable.</p><p>He lay down on the bed. It felt oddly empty without Cosmin.</p><p>
  <em>Who would have thought it, a year ago, that I would have such a friend as Cosmin? Good god, I am pathetic.</em>
</p><p>There was a cough outside the door to indicate somebody’s presence, and Cosmin entered.</p><p>“Cap, my dear,” he said casually, as he kicked his sandals off and put them beside the Captain’s boots, “I am terribly fond of you.”</p><p>“And I of you,” the Captain said, his mouth dry.</p><p>Cosmin paced a little more. “May I ask you a question, Cap?”</p><p>“By all means,” the Captain assured him, although his stomach had plummeted.</p><p>Cosmin turned to face him.</p><p>“Do you like men?” he inquired of the Captain.</p><p>“Beg pardon?”</p><p>“Romantically. Do you like men?”</p><p>The Captain took a deep breath. “I… why yes, I do rather. Well, I like the attractive ones, anyway.”</p><p>He waited anxiously for Cosmin’s response. He knew Cosmin himself liked men, he <em>knew</em> there was no way he would be anything other than wonderfully accepting, but in the moment all of that was forgotten and he felt an acute pain in his middle from the tension of having made himself so ridiculously vulnerable.</p><p>“Oh good.” Cosmin sighed. “I will now feel slightly less foolish in the declaration of love I am about to say.”</p><p>The Captain choked.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>He leapt up, ran over to Cosmin, and placed both hands on his shoulders.</p><p>“Now listen up, man. See here. If anyone is making a declaration of love here, it is me. Ever since I first met you, I have regarded you to be the handsomest, kindest, most wonderful man of my acquaintance. Every time I see you I want to bury my hands in your hair and kiss you, and I want to embrace you, hold you tight to me and never let you go, and I want to fall asleep beside you every remaining night of my existence, because when I lie beside you I am almost never haunted by my memories of the War, and that is hardly the beginning of the good you have done me. I rarely if ever laughed before you came here, and you see now how much I laugh and smile. I owe everything to you. The others respect you, and they adore you, and thus I believe I have their blessing in loving you. And I do. I love you, Cosmin, to the ends of the earth, and I pray to heaven that you return my affections in at least some very small measure.”</p><p>Cosmin stared back at him. His eyes widened, and a muscle in his arm moved.</p><p>“Cap… sir… I have the pleasure of informing you that I hold you in that very same regard in which you hold me. I have been fond of you since I have known you, and it did not take very long to develop into full-fledged love. I adore you, and I would be forever indebted to you if you would do me the honour of becoming mine? I can offer you no material ring, but I believe that a pair of declarations from a pair of caring people will do just as well as a proper wedding ceremony.”</p><p>Not a beat was missed:</p><p>“Kiss me please,” said the Captain, in what he thought must be the quietest voice he had ever used.</p><p>Cosmin certainly took his time. He placed his hands beside the Captain’s jaw, cupping his face and tilting it up slowly and gently. His fingertips rested on the Captain’s neck. He moved in for the kiss, glancing at the Captain’s mouth and at his eyes, slowly, and finally he pressed his lips to the Captain’s.</p><p>And it was the most glorious sensation that the Captain had ever experienced. It wasn’t just the physical sensory input, he found, but also the emotions attached to the kiss, that made it so wonderful. His heart fluttered and his lungs ached. He felt like his ribs would crack from the sheer emotional force being applied to his chest. He wanted to cry with relief, but was unable, as he was prevented by his euphoria.</p><p>They stood still, bodies right up against each other, and the only sounds were their breaths. When eventually they pulled away, it was by barely an inch. The Captain sighed happily, and felt sure that Cosmin could feel the air from it.</p><p>“What sort of influence are you on me now, sir?” he asked.</p><p>Cosmin ignored the question. “May I kiss you again, Cap?”</p><p>“Sir, I am practically <em>begging</em> you to.”</p><p>Cosmin kissed him again, and it was a beautiful light touch to his lips that made him ache for another.</p><p>“And again?”</p><p>“Cosmin,” the Captain laughed, “listen to me. You have my permission forever to kiss me.”</p><p>“Permission forever could be abused,” Cosmin told him, earnestly. “I don’t want to force —”</p><p>“Well, please consider my permission given for tonight at least.”</p><p>Cosmin smiled and kissed him again. Compared to his experience with Thomas, the Captain found it very tame, but that was the wonderful thing about it. It was casual, and it felt like a kiss shared by a real couple, not by two people having a brief fling.</p><p>There were a few more kisses, and they were brief touches, and somehow that felt far better than kissing Thomas for ages and ages. After a couple of minutes of light kisses interchanged with loving smiles and glances (all of which made the Captain feel terribly silly and faint, utterly enamoured, and also very, <em>very</em> hot about the neck), they moved over to sit on the bed and tucked their legs up as they faced each other again.</p><p>“My dear,” Cosmin began.</p><p>The Captain shushed him. “The others must <em>not</em> hear us.”</p><p>“My dear,” Cosmin said again, quieter. He pressed his lips to the Captain’s hand, then put a hand at the back of his neck to pull him in gently to another kiss. The Captain put his hands on Cosmin’s chest, gripping the neckline of the tunic, to encourage him closer. The kiss became ever so slightly less soft, and the Captain grinned, because it felt <em>real</em> and <em>wonderful</em> and he could sense just a tiny bit of desire in Cosmin.</p><p>
  <em>Ohh yes. This is what it ought to be like. Damn right.</em>
</p><p>“Cap?”</p><p>“Mm?”</p><p>“Would you consent to having your shirt removed?”</p><p>The Captain blinked.</p><p>“I say, this is getting serious! Yes, absolutely, I will take it off now if you like.”</p><p>“Let me?” Cosmin asked.</p><p>The Captain nodded breathlessly and sat still while he was unbuttoned. Cosmin’s knuckles brushed the Captain’s chest several times, and he found himself able to relax into the touch. Then Cosmin took the Captain’s hands, one by one, in his own, to undo the cuff buttons, which felt especially intimate. The shirt was at this point unbuttoned but still held mostly in place by the Captain’s tie, which had not been loosened. Cosmin went to remove the tie, then decided to give in to tropes for once and use the tie to pull the Captain in for a long, luscious, indulgent kiss. They slowly pulled apart, breathing heavily, and Cosmin, who had never undone a tie before, found it utterly necessary to furrow his brow in concentration as he figured it out. The Captain felt that he at last understood the concept of yearning. Cosmin succeeded in undoing the knot in the tie, and, as he slowly pulled it off the Captain’s neck, pressed his lips to the neck in question, nipping slightly at the skin there, then kissing the collarbone.</p><p>“Ohh… for the love… wow.” The Captain could not believe his luck. His suspenders were unhooked from his shoulders, and the shirt was removed and finally cast onto the floor.</p><p>Cosmin kissed him again, and the Captain felt it to be a totally different experience when topless. For one thing, he could feel the fabric of the tunic against his middle. It felt intimate.</p><p>After a minute more, Cosmin removed his own lips from the Captain’s and held a finger up.</p><p>“Wait….”</p><p>Cosmin hurriedly took his tunic off too.</p><p>
  <em>Good lord.</em>
</p><p>His muscles were just as the Captain had dreamed. He was strong and beautiful. When questioned afterwards by his friends, the Captain would refuse to tell them whether a Centurion wore anything under his tunic, but suffice to say, whatever sight did greet him after Cosmin’s tunic was on the floor, it was enough to leave him gobsmacked and just a little excited, and not least because of Cosmin’s midriff, which was strong but not superhumanly so; he looked real and beautiful. Cosmin leaned forward to kiss the Captain again.</p><p>“My darling, are you very sure this is not too much for you?” he asked.</p><p>“Cosmin, I have been waiting my entire life and death for tonight, so I think I can handle it. Would you care to remove my trousers?” </p><p>“Oh, Venus save me,” Cosmin whispered, and went in for a kiss, hands going for the Captain’s trouser fastenings as they gently fell backwards onto the bed.</p><p>In the morning, Thomas found himself engaged in a chess game with Robin, officiated by Alison, since she could actually move the pieces. It was not fun. Chess was not in his skill set. Pat and Mary had progressed to a show about a sleazy Georgian butler<a href="#blackadder2" id="blackadder2back" name="blackadder2back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>, and were loving it (and Thomas was delighted to see that one particular episode mocked Byron most excellently). Kitty, Lady Button and Julian were watching Humphrey’s body wander around. One thing was missing: the Captain. (And Humphrey’s head, actually, but Thomas had put that inside Graham the suit of armour a few days ago and thought it likely it was still there.)</p><p>Hours later, at eleven o’clock, the Captain wandered in. There was nothing unusual about this; he often enough arrived late, as he would patrol the grounds early in the day. What was unusual was the fact that the Captain was yawning and rubbing his eyes, meaning he had just got up, which was most unlike him and generally unfit behaviour for a ranking officer.</p><p>Oh, and the fact that, aside from his boots, suspenders and trousers, all he wore was a red tunic that was a little too big on him.</p><p>He wandered over to the sofa, sat down, and smirked at them all. There was silence for a minute, and then Julian spoke.</p><p>“I believe congratulations are in order. One suspects you experienced a <em>wedding night</em> of sorts last night, Captain.”</p><p>“What gave it away?” he asked, smiling blearily. He rested his head on one hand, elbow on the back of the sofa.</p><p>“First time?” Julian asked conversationally.</p><p>“Rather a personal question!” Thomas said. The whole thing was pretty amusing, really.</p><p>“Captain, you should probably go and give Cosmin his shirt back so that he can come downstairs,” Kitty said reproachfully.</p><p>“What, none of you are surprised? Scandalised? Anything?”</p><p>“Captain,” said Robin, “you listen now. You love men. Cosmin… is man. You love Cosmin, he love you, is the same as man love woman. Oh, and we all know anyway.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You look at him and <em>poof</em>, you are red. We all know you and him are doing it.”</p><p>Lady Button looked put out.</p><p><em>Ah. That would be the scandalised one,</em> Thomas thought. He grimaced.</p><p>Thomas watched, interested, as the Captain stood up and cleared his throat.</p><p>“With all <em>due</em> respect, Fanny, could you please stop looking so horrified?”</p><p>“It’s wrong,” Lady Button sniffed.</p><p>“See here. I have found the man who I love with all my heart and will devote myself to for the rest of my existence, and he loves me too. Pray tell just what is <em>wrong</em> about that? Hmm?” the Captain demanded.</p><p>
  <em>Wow. Go Captain.</em>
</p><p>“To tear marriages apart by this cavorting —”</p><p>“Neither Cosmin nor I ever married, Fanny!”</p><p>“Well, the Romans were savages. They probably just… <em>fornicated</em> and never bothered to marry.”</p><p>“They had a goddess of marriage. She was queen of the gods,” Thomas put in, deadpan. The others looked at him. “What? I did study classics at Oxford, you know. It was all the rage in the Regency era.”</p><p>Thomas suddenly noticed just how strong the Captain was. It was a lot more visible when he wore a short-sleeved tunic.</p><p>“I thought you got kicked out,” the Captain said, frowning.</p><p>“I did,” Thomas admitted.</p><p>“Ha! What for?” Julian crowed.</p><p>Thomas chose his words, or rather word, carefully. “Fornicating,” he said delicately.</p><p>“You could get kicked out for that?” Julian asked, delighted.</p><p>“If the person one was caught fornicating with was the daughter of the college porter and also married to the local MP, then yes, one could get kicked out.”</p><p>The Captain burst out laughing, and sounded just a tiny bit like a seal.</p><p>“<em>That</em> was your one experience of going to bed with someone? I thought it was more dignified than that!”</p><p>
  <em>My one experience… aside from a small bit of whoring. Male whores, female whores. But I do not count them.</em>
</p><p>Thomas bit his thumb at the Captain.</p><p>“That’s a bit outdated, Tom,” Pat said.</p><p>“Yeah, you’d want to use this instead,” Julian said, and demonstrated.</p><p>Alison bit back a grin.</p><p>“Oh, also, we were in the library, so I didn’t technically go to <em>bed</em> with her, Captain.”</p><p>“The <em>library</em>?” Mary asked.</p><p>“Indeed. On the table. She arrived when I was poring over some, ah, old manuscripts.”</p><p>“Thomas mean rude picture of ladies,” Robin informed the room.</p><p>“What? No!”</p><p>“Well, you put some in cover of Button House book when you were here alive.”</p><p>“I never!”</p><p>“You want me to tell Alison to look <em>Canterbury Tales</em> on top shelf, then? Huh?”</p><p>“I would rather you did not…” Thomas mumbled, his stomach turning, although he could just tell Julian was plotting how to get his hands on that particular work of Chaucer’s.</p><p>“To return to the matter at <em>hand</em>,” growled the Captain, “Fanny will stop judging me for loving Cosmin. End of. Alright? Wonderful!”</p><p>He marched out of the room, then turned back, stuck his head in, and shouted:</p><p>“You just <em>had</em> to ruin it, didn’t you?”</p><p>“Lady Button,” said Kitty, slowly getting to her feet, “maybe you should leave him alone.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“He is <em>clearly</em> upset,” Thomas said, having finally had enough. “Lady Button, come on. He is happy. After however many years of pining after every halfway handsome bloke that steps foot into this house, he has found one whose personality he loves too and who loves him, so why the Deuce can you not leave him be?”</p><p>“It just hurts. Reminds me of George.”</p><p>“Well Kitty’s happy-go-lucky nature reminds me of my older sister Sophie who brought shame on us by eloping and Julian’s stroppiness is so exactly like my younger sister Daisy that it <em>hurts</em>, because Daisy died of tuberculosis when she was ten, but I don’t take it out on Julian and Kitty, do I?”</p><p>The room was quiet. Thomas glared.</p><p>“You had siblings?” Mary asked.</p><p>“One five years older and one five years younger, yes. But that is aside the point. It isn’t the Captain’s fault that it was men your husband wanted to sleep with, rather than women, Lady B.”</p><p>“I suppose not, no. I am loath to be in a state of argument with any of my housemates, in any case.”</p><p>Thomas waved his arms around dramatically, loving how the fabric of his shirt swooshed against his arms. “Finally! Now when he comes back down you are going to apologise.”</p><p>After half an hour or so, the Captain arrived back again, dressed in his normal fashion and carrying his stick. Cosmin was beside him. It was he who wore the tunic.</p><p>They were holding hands and looked so wonderfully domestic.</p><p>They completely ignored Lady Button and went to sit on the couch in front of the television, which was already playing a special show on superweapons of the 1910s. Cosmin sat down right at the edge of the sofa and held his arm out to his man to indicate where he should sit. The Captain sat to his right, his body relaxed. He allowed Cosmin to place an arm around his shoulders, then he leaned up into a long kiss. They kissed for about a minute: long enough for it to be clear that they were utterly oblivious to everything. When they eventually stopped, the Captain grinned and pressed a final quick kiss to Cosmin’s jaw, before settling down to watch the television.</p><p>Watching, Thomas smiled. Wedded bliss suited the Captain. Why, already he was happy and more comfortable in himself. As they watched the show, Cosmin would every now and then press his lips to his man’s forehead, hand, cheek, neck, and so on. Thomas had never seen the Captain so at ease. He could have sworn that he heard a quiet exchange between the two:</p><p>“I love you, sweetheart.”</p><p>“I love you too, Cap.”</p><p>“Darling.”</p><p>“Cap.”</p><p>“Sugar.”</p><p>“<em>Cap</em>.”</p><p>“Sweetness.”</p><p>“Cap!”</p><p>“My dearest heart….”</p><p>Cosmin pretended to hit the Captain lightly, but he just laughed. He looked childlike and carefree. He closed his eyes and smiled gently as Cosmin kissed him again.</p><p>“They are kissings a lot,” Mary commented under her breath to Thomas, as they watched Cosmin fall back onto the sofa, the Captain on top of him, as they kissed. The Captain’s hands played with the hair at the back of Cosmin’s neck. It was beautiful and soft and slow.</p><p>“He does have a lifetime to catch up on,” Thomas breathed back.</p><p>“Real love,” Robin said. “If Captain did not really love Cosmin he never let us see this. Only reason he let us is not waste time when he can kiss. Cosmin above us.”</p><p>“I am very proud of you guys,” Alison said.</p><p>“Really?” Thomas straightened up eagerly.</p><p>“Yep. The Captain never officially came out to you guys, but you have accepted his gayness and his love for Cosmin and everything. Trust me, it counts when you find people who accept you.”</p><p>“I second that,” Thomas said. “I would have been so much happier when I was alive if I had had lots of people to tell me it was alright.”</p><p>“And, Thomas… I’m <em>really</em> proud of you for standing up to Lady Button. That can’t have been easy. She needed it, too.”</p><p>“The Captain needed it to happen. Lady B is incidental.”</p><p>“Even so.” Alison shrugged.</p><p>Thomas glanced over at the newlyweds again. The Captain had fallen asleep with his head on Cosmin’s chest. Or at least, he was lying still with his eyes closed.</p><p>“I never knew him to miss a superweapons show before,” Pat said. “He must really love Cosmin.”</p><p>Cosmin was stroking the Captain’s face gently, smoothing his hair and tracing a finger along his lips. It was so beautifully romantic that Thomas felt like being sick, but at least it gave him some decent inspiration for poetry.</p><p>“Yes, he does really love Cosmin,” Thomas said. “And I believe we have a responsibility to not make that difficult for him. From now on, we do not bother them. We support them. We are kind to them. Agreed?”</p><p>“Yeah, go on then,” Julian acquiesced. “God knows the poor bugger’s been through a lot.”</p><p>“Deal, absolutely.” Pat nodded.</p><p>“If the Devils be not involved ’tis fine by me,” Mary proclaimed.</p><p>“If it makes them happy, yes… but I was sort of already doing it right, wasn’t I?” Kitty asked. She looked relieved at Thomas’s nod.</p><p>“Love is love,” Robin grumped.</p><p>Thomas looked expectantly at Lady Button, and spread his arms out. “Lady B, come on.”</p><p>“Oh, fine! Alright then,” she snapped, but then she softened. “Yes, alright.”</p><p>“Jolly good,” Thomas said. “Promise, though.”</p><p>“Promise,” they all whispered together.</p><p>Later, the Captain woke up in Cosmin’s arms. He had awoken beside Cosmin that morning too. They had been lying together on the bed, comfortable in the late autumn heat. Cosmin, it seemed, had a habit of sleeping late. This did not bother the Captain in the least, as it had given him the opportunity to behold his man’s — his <em>husband</em>’s — face. Cosmin was downright gorgeous, proper stunning. The Captain could hardly believe his fortune in having secured such a man for himself. It was amazing enough that such a perfect man had turned up, been one of the dozen-odd ghosts in Button House, but the fact that he wanted the Captain too just felt staggering.</p><p>
  <em>How can he love me? How can he love my idiosyncratic ways, my bluntness, my total lack of self-awareness, my irritating fascination with the War? He is so far out of my league….</em>
</p><p>The Captain had continued thinking in this depressing line for something like a quarter of an hour, but at that point Cosmin had awoken, and had (with that wonderful invention, the kiss) informed the Captain in no uncertain terms that he was adored and revered by Cosmin. A half hour of being kissed by another man as they laid on their sides facing each other had proved a wonderful antidote to self-doubt. Things had in fact got a little more heated than that, but hadn’t reached a conclusion as such because Cosmin had been a little sleepy and they had agreed to save it for later. So, dizzy from the lingering sensation of Cosmin’s lips on his midriff and inner thigh, the Captain had pulled on some clothes, including his husband’s tunic, and headed downstairs to distract himself.</p><p>And, long story short, had woken up in Cosmin’s embrace again.</p><p>
  <em>I could certainly get used to this.</em>
</p><p>“Captain,” Thomas said, approaching him. The Captain sat up and tore his thoughts away from Cosmin, then nodded to indicate he was listening. Thomas continued: “I would like to say, on behalf of all of us, that we are sorry if we… no, we are sorry <em>that</em> we treated you unkindly with regard to your feelings around Cosmin, your friendship with him —”</p><p>The Captain snorted. “Friendship? Thomas, he <em>slept</em> with me.”</p><p>Thomas squealed. “Good god, man, I didn’t ask for the details! But, err, as I was saying. I apologise wholly for our behaviour, and take responsibility for a large portion of it, except for the fact that around seventy percent of it was Lady Button, and I wish you and Cosmin the best.”</p><p>The Captain smiled, feeling happy. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”</p><p>“He is pretty handsome,” Thomas said, looking at Cosmin, who was still fast asleep.</p><p>“Yeah…” the Captain said. He lowered his voice. “And, err, no hard feelings, Thorne? About us?”</p><p>“My dear man, how could I ever? You and I were always so ill-suited to each other. We are different in all the wrong ways. You and he on the other hand are practically made for each other, and I am sensible to that.”</p><p>The Captain nodded appreciatively. “I must say, though, that although I am more laid-back these days —”</p><p>“— besides <em>getting</em> laid —” Thomas whispered under his breath. Julian had taught him that term.</p><p>“— it will still take a little more getting used to. I have so many instincts in me to tear myself away from him.”</p><p>“It will be alright,” Thomas said. “Trust me, it gets better. Your love for him will do the trick.”</p><p>He bowed and walked away. The Captain smiled, and lay back down on Cosmin’s chest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="blackadder2" name="blackadder2"></a>1. “Blackadder the Third”. Made better by Hugh Laurie! <a href="#blackadder2back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Final chapter of these babeys. I’m going to miss them so much.</p><p>So many “thank you”s to each and every one of you who read this, left Kudos, commented, everything. I adore you all!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That evening, after a very pleasant game of charades with all of the other ghosts (including the plague ghosts, who decided to actually traipse upstairs for once in their deaths), Cosmin led the Captain back to their room with a smile and a little touch on his palm.</p><p>As they undressed to sleep, the Captain looked at Cosmin, and, before he could stop himself, blurted: “You know, you fulfil all of my schoolboy fantasies.”</p><p>Cosmin tilted his head to the side. “Fantasies?”</p><p>“Language problem, or…?” the Captain asked.</p><p>“Language problem,” Cosmin clarified.</p><p>“Oh, right. I see. It sort of means… a fanciful thing, that I thought about, as a teenager. The sort of man who I would have imagined to be the perfect man, the ideal man, the, err….” The Captain found himself rambling. He gathered himself and continued explaining. “Many girls, or, as it were, boys, would fantasise about soldier men, for some reason. It also refers to, err, things that one would like to have done to one by an attractive individual. Oh, lord above, it sounds awfully bawdy when I say it like that. I didn’t mean —”</p><p>He looked up and realised that Cosmin was barely restraining a laugh.</p><p>“Cap, not to worry. I understand now. And may I say you certainly fulfil my fantasies.”</p><p>“What, really? What fantasies?” the Captain asked.</p><p><em>For the love of god don’t ask that!</em> he told himself, but it was too late. He was blushing already, but found his hands on Cosmin’s waist and his broad shoulders enveloped by Cosmin’s arms. Cosmin leaned down to whisper in his ear.</p><p>“Well, as you put it, the <em>soldier man</em>, for one. I always loved a man with a bit of authority and a penchant for using it for good. What else? Oh! Moustache. It makes you look” — he lowered the Captain onto the bed and hovered above him, on hands and knees — “oh, what is that word? Fanciable. Downright” — he kissed the Captain hard — “dashing.”</p><p>“Anything else?” the Captain asked jokingly. Cosmin gave him a <em>look</em>. “Oh lord, there’s more, isn’t there?”</p><p>“Yes, well. I’ve always wanted a man who would use pet names for me,” Cosmin admitted sheepishly, rolling off the Captain and sitting up beside him.</p><p>“Is that so, sweetheart?” the Captain propped himself up on his elbows and laughed. He was surprised, gratified and enamoured to see Cosmin’s face colour a little as he grinned to himself. “My most darling gentleman caller?”</p><p>“Oh, stop,” Cosmin said, burying his face in the Captain’s shoulder and hugging him.</p><p>“I used to be obsessed with the RAF men at our military dances,” the Captain said, suddenly remembering.</p><p>“RAF?” Cosmin asked.</p><p>“Doesn’t matter. Subdivision of the military, really.”</p><p>“Ah.” Cosmin nodded.</p><p>“None of them came close to being you, though,” the Captain hastened to tell him. “In personality or looks, you rotten handsome love.”</p><p>He heard that Cosmin was humming a tune. The Captain thought it was the most glorious sound in the world.</p><p>“What is that?” he asked gently.</p><p>Cosmin turned to look at him. “A song from Rome. We sang it when my cousin got married.”</p><p>“It’s beautiful.”</p><p>“Thank you. Do you sing any songs?”</p><p>The Captain laughed awkwardly. “Well, yes, but my singing is not very good. And besides, I only know the songs that we sang as soldiers. I was never much good in the school choir.”</p><p>“Sing me a soldier song,” Cosmin pleaded, kissing the Captain’s forehead.</p><p>“My singing is awful.”</p><p>“Not to me,” said Cosmin, kissing the corner of the Captain’s mouth, “because to me if it is in your voice it could never sound bad.”</p><p>“Well… there was one. It had a set of words in French, and a set in English. Vera Lynn did the English version, and I think that the French version was Édith Piaf<a href="#regrets1" id="regrets1back" name="regrets1back"><sup>[1]</sup></a>.”</p><p>“Oh, yes please! If you like, of course. I will have no idea what the French words mean, but I am not sure that that matters.”</p><p>The Captain cleared his throat and hummed a small scale to warm up, then began.</p><p>“Non! rien de rien / Non! je ne regrette rien / Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait / Ni le mal; tout ça m’est bien égal / Non! rien de rien / Non! je ne regrette rien / C’est payé, balayé, oublié / Je me fous du passé.”</p><p>Cosmin kissed the Captain gently, then nodded for him to continue.</p><p>“No! no regrets / No! I will have no regrets / All the things that went wrong / For at last I have learnt to be strong / No! no regrets / No! I will have no regrets / For the grief doesn’t last / It is gone; I’ve forgotten the past.”</p><p>Cosmin grinned.</p><p>“Oh, Cap. You sing <em>wonderfully</em>.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>The Captain leaned forward and pressed his lips to Cosmin’s.</p><p>“Oh, my dear,” breathed Cosmin when they pulled apart, “I have been waiting for that and it was amazing.”</p><p>“Waiting for what?”</p><p>“For you to kiss me without me starting it,” Cosmin admitted shyly.</p><p>“Have I not, before now? Oh, I am so sorry,” the Captain gushed. He quickly remedied the problem by kissing Cosmin many times.</p><p>“My dear,” laughed Cosmin, “we ought to sleep now.”</p><p>“As in actually sleep?”</p><p>“If you like.” Cosmin shrugged.</p><p>They undressed down to the basics and lay down together, comfortably lying right beside each other.</p><p>“Cap?”</p><p>“Mm?”</p><p>“I want you to know that it is alright if you are not always relaxed around me, because I know that your soldiers would have been unkind if they knew you loved a man.”</p><p>The Captain tried to stop himself crying. Eventually, that failed, and he broke down in tears of relief, and Cosmin sat up and took him in his arms. The Captain cried into Cosmin’s chest.</p><p>“Shh. Shh, my love.”</p><p>“But you deserve better, you deserve a man who will love you without shame —”</p><p>“Cap. I have already waited two millennia for this. I can be patient while the man of my <em>dreams</em> adjusts to being with me.”</p><p>“You deserve —”</p><p>“No matter what I deserve. I want you, if you will have me.”</p><p>The Captain looked up at him.</p><p>“Of course I will have you. I <em>love</em> you.”</p><p>“Well, then. I love you too.”</p><p>Cosmin and the Captain lay back down, and fell asleep, softly, together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="regrets1" name="regrets1"></a>1. Correct. <a href="#regrets1back"><sup>[back]</sup></a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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